The Treaty of 1091.
On the whole, though with some hesitation, I accept Caen as the place of the treaty between William Rufus and Robert. Orderic (693 B) places the meeting of the brothers at Rouen; “Duo fratres Rothomagum pacifice convenerunt, et in unum congregati, abolitis prioribus querimoniis, pacificati sunt.” The meeting at Caen and the mediation of the King of the French come from the Continuation of William of Jumièges (viii. 3). The passage stands in full thus;
“Facta est tandem inter eos apud Cadomum, ut diximus, adminiculante Philippo rege Francorum, qui in auxilium ducis contra Willelmum regem apud oppidum Auci ingenti Anglorum et Normannorum exercitu tunc morantem venerat, qualiscumque concordia, et quantum ad ducem Robertum spectat probrosa atque damnosa.”
The story is here told in a hurried and inverted way, as the whole tale is from the beginning of the chapter; but there is nothing strictly to be called inaccurate in the story. It may be that the mention of Philip now is merely a confusion with his former appearance at Eu; but an intervention of Philip is not unlikely in itself; Caen too as the place of meeting is less obvious than Rouen, and so far the statement in favour of it is to be preferred. But the point is not of much importance, and the evidence is fairly open to doubt.
In any case William of Malmesbury (iv. 307, 308) is mistaken in speaking of the peace as agreed and sworn to before William crossed into Normandy. He gives a picture of the anarchy of Normandy which is true enough; only he seems to conceive it too much after the pattern of the later anarchy of England. King Philip (see the passage quoted in p. 239) has got his money and has gone back to his banquet;
“Ita bello intestino diu laboravit Normannia, modo illis, modo istis, vincentibus; proceres utriusque furorem incitabant, homines levissimi, in neutra parte fidem habentes.”
Now in the days of Stephen the anarchy at least took the form of a war between rival claimants of the crown. Men really fought for their own hands; but they at least professed to fight for King or Empress. But the special characteristic of the Norman anarchy is that everybody is already fighting with everybody else, and that the invasion of the country makes no difference, except so far as it adds a new element of confusion. Ralph of Conches goes over to William only because Robert fails to defend him against a local enemy; William’s name is not mentioned at all in the war of Courcy, till his actual coming frightens both sides alike. William of Malmesbury misses the special point of the whole story, namely that the strife between William and Robert stands quite distinct from the local struggles which still went on all over the country, except when the two got intermingled at particular points. He then adds;
“Pauci quibus sanius consilium, consulentes suis commodis quod utrobique possessiones haberent, mediatores pacis fuere; ut comiti rex Cinomannis adquireret, comes regi castella quæ habebat et Fiscannum cœnobium concederet. Juratum est hoc pactum, et ab utrorumque hominibus sacramento firmatum. Nec multo post rex mare transiit, ut fidem promissorum expleret.”
Florence (1091) puts the case much better;
“Mense Februario rex Willelmus junior Normanniam petiit, ut eam fratri suo Rotberto abriperet; sed dum ibi moraretur, pax inter eos facta est.”
It will be seen that William of Malmesbury gives only a very imperfect statement of the terms of the treaty. They are nowhere so fully and clearly given as in our own Chronicle; only the English writer is not quite so exact with regard to the territorial cessions as those writers who wrote in Normandy. The brothers meet—the place is not mentioned—and agree on the terms, which are given in words which sound like the actual words of the treaty, which was likely enough to be set down in an English as well as a Latin copy. They stand thus;
“þæt se eorl him to handan let Uescam and þone eorldom æt Ou, and Kiæresburh. And þærto eacan þes cynges men sæclæs beon moston on þam castelan þe hi ær þes eorles unþances begiten hæfdon. And se cyng him ongean þa Manige behet þa ær heora fæder gewann, and þa fram þam eorle gebogen wæs gebygle to donne, and eall þæt his fæder þær begeondan hæfde, butan þam þe he þam cynge þa geunnen hæfde; and þæt ealle þa þe on Englelande for þam eorle æror heora land forluron hit on þisum sehte habban sceoldan and se eorl on Englelande eallswa mycel swa on heora forewarde wæs.”
The emphatic references to his father are preeminently characteristic of the Red King. We seem to hear his very words, the words of the dutiful son, granting, not without some sarcasm, to the rebel, the heritage of the father against whom he had rebelled. This emphatic feature disappears in the other versions, even in the abridged Latin version of Florence. To the list of places in Normandy to be given up he adds “abbatiam in monte sancti Michaelis sitam,” and the last words, which are certainly not very clear, he translates “et tantum terræ quantum conventionis inter eos fuerat comiti daret.” This can only refer to something which William was to grant to Robert as a free gift. Domesday shows that there were no older English possessions of Robert to be given back to him. See N. C. vol. iv. p. 629.
Besides William of Malmesbury, only the Chronicler and Florence mention the stipulation about Maine. This is again a sign that in the Chronicle we are dealing with an actual document. For, as nothing came of that clause, no part of the treaty was more likely to be forgotten. William of Malmesbury seems to have caught up the first words of the treaty, and to have got no further. Thus Maine gets in his text an undue prominence, which may possibly account for a statement of his which follows, and which has nothing at all like it anywhere else. The King and the Duke are going to attack Maine the very first thing after the conclusion of the treaty; only they are hindered by the campaign against Henry; “Ergo uterque dux ingentes moliebantur conatus ut Cinomannis invaderent; sed obstitit jam paratis jamque profecturis Henrici fratris minoris animositas.”
It may be needful to point out that the Chronicle really does mention Maine; for Mr. Earle seems to have been the first of its editors to find out the fact. Gibson, Ingram, and Thorpe all print “þa manige,” with a small m, and explain it “the many,” “the many castles,” “multa castella.” But, if there were no other reason, the words which answer to it in Florence, “Cenomannicam vero provinciam,” are enough to show that we should read with Mr. Earle “þa Manige,” the county of Maine. The French idiom, whatever may be its origin, which, as is always the case in Wace, adds the article to Le Mans, Le Maine, is here found in English. So it is in 1099, 1110, 1111, 1112. The earlier entry in 1073, “þæt land Mans,” is less clear.
Those who wrote in Normandy say nothing about Maine; but they more distinctly define the cessions in Normandy itself. Thus Robert of Torigny in his Continuation (Will. Gem. viii. 3);
“Quidquid rex Willelmus in Normannia occupaverat, per infidelitatem hominum ducis, qui eidem regi suas munitiones tradiderant, quas suis militibus ipse commiserat ut inde fratrem suum infestarent, impune permissus est habere. Munitiones illæ quas hoc modo tenebat fuerunt, Fiscannum, oppidum Auci quod Willelmus comes Aucensis cum reliquis suis firmitatibus illi tradiderat; similiter Stephanus comes de Albamarla, filius Odonis comitis de Campania, Willielmi autem regis Anglorum senioris ex sorore nepos, fecerat, et alii plures ultra Sequanam habitantes.”
The words in Italics are the writer’s backward way of recording the events of 1090 among the clauses of the treaty of 1091. In his own chronicle (1091) Robert of Torigny has nothing to say, except “ut castra illa quæ frater ab eo acquisierat regi remanerent.” This not very clear account comes from Henry of Huntingdon (vii. 2, p. 215 ed. Arnold), with the omission of an important word. But though Robert mentions no particular places in his summary of the treaty, yet, in copying Henry of Huntingdon’s account of the places occupied by William’s troops in 1090, to Saint Valery which alone are mentioned by Henry, he adds, not only Eu like our authorities, but also Fécamp. The Chronicle, as we have seen, mentions Fécamp among the places which were to be ceded to William in 1091; no one else mentions it among the places which were occupied in 1090.
Orderic has three references to the cessions; but he nowhere mentions either Fécamp or Saint Michael’s Mount. In his first account (693 B, C) he says only “Robertus dux … ei [regi] Aucensem comitatum et Albamarlam, totamque terram Gerardi de Gornaco et Radulfi de Conchis, cum omnibus municipiis eorum eisque subjectorum concessit.” In 697 C he says only “Robertus dux magnam partem Normanniæ Guillelmo regi concessit.”
It is the Chronicle again which seems to give us the real text of the clauses about the succession;
“And gif se eorl forðferde butan sunu be rihtre ǽwe, wære se cyng yrfenuma of ealles Normandig. Be þisre sylfan forewarde, gif se cyng swulte, wære se eorl yrfenuma ealles Englalandes.”
It is perhaps worth notice that these words taken strictly do not contemplate the possibility of William Rufus leaving children. This is slightly altered in Florence;
“Si comes absque filio legali in matrimonio genito moreretur, hæres ejus esset rex; modoque per omnia simili, si regi contigisset mori, hæres illius fieret comes.”
Henry of Huntingdon (vii. 2, p. 215 ed. Arnold), who, as we have seen, is followed with some changes by Robert of Torigny, seems to abridge the account in the Chronicle. After speaking of the events of 1090, he adds;
“Anno vero sequenti rex sequens eos concordiam cum fratre suo fecit. Eo tamen pacto ut castra illa quæ frater ab illo injuria acquisierat, regi remanerent, rex autem adjuvaret eum ad omnia quæ pater suus habuerat conquirenda. Statutum etiam, si quis eorum moreretur prior altero sine filio, quod alter fieret hæres illius.”
A good deal of the diplomatic exactness of the Chronicle is lost here, and it is not easy to see what castles Robert had taken from William, unjustly or otherwise. Robert of Torigny hardly mends the matter by leaving out the word “injuria.”
Henry is not mentioned in any account of the treaty; but his possessions come by implication under the head of the lands which William was to win back for Robert, with the exception of Cherbourg and Saint Michael’s Mount—if we are right in adding the Mount on the authority of Florence—which William was to keep for himself. The shameful treatment of Henry by his brothers naturally calls forth a good deal of sympathy on the part of some of our writers, though they do not always bring out the state of the case very clearly. They speak of his brothers refusing him a share in his father’s dominions, rather than of their depriving him of the possessions which one of themselves had sold to him. Hear for instance the author of the Brevis Relatio (11), writing in Henry’s own reign;
“Concordiam adinvicem fecerunt Willelmus secundus rex Angliæ et Robertus comes Normanniæ, et quum fratrem suum Henricum debuissent adjuvare, eique providere ut honorabiliter inter illos sicut frater eorum et filius regis vivere posset, non hoc fecerunt, sed de tota terra patris sui expellere conati sunt.”
The same words are used by Robert of Torigny, in the Continuation of William of Jumièges, viii. 3.
William of Malmesbury (iv. 308), in a passage which follows that which has been already cited about Maine, after the words “Henrici fratris minoris animositas,” adds, “qui frenderet propter fratrum avaritiam, quod uterque possessiones paternas dividerent, et se omnium pene expertem non erubescerent.”
The treaty takes a very strange form in Matthew Paris, Hist. Angl. i. 39. The brothers are reconciled by wise friends, who say to them, “Absit, ne Franci fraternas acies, alternaque regna profanis decertata odiis, derideant subsannantes.” And the reason is given; “Franci enim eo tempore multa super ducem occupaverant.” This hardly means the Vexin; it is more likely to be a confused version of Philip’s intervention.
The only writers who mention the driving out of Eadgar are the Chronicler and Florence. The former brings it into connexion with the treaty, without seeming to make it exactly part of the treaty itself. Having given the clauses of the treaty, and mentioned its confirmation by the oaths on both sides, he adds; “Onmang þisum sæhte wearð Eadgar æþeling belandod of þam þe se eorl him æror þær to handa gelæten hæfde.” The measure seems to have had something to do with the treaty without being one of its clauses. Were such things as secret or additional articles, or agreements which were to go for nothing because they were not written on the same paper as other agreements, known to so early a stage of diplomacy?
The Chronicler does not mention the siege of Saint Michael’s Mount; but, immediately after the confiscation of Eadgar’s lands in Normandy, he mentions his voyage to Scotland and the events which followed on it. Florence puts his account of the siege of the Mount directly after the treaty and the oaths of the twenty-four barons. He then goes on;
“At rex cum obsidionis diutinæ pertæsus fuisset, impacatus recessit, et non multo post Eadgarum clitonem honore, quem ei comes dederat, privavit et de Normannia expulit.” And a little way on he speaks of “clito Eadgarus, quem rex de Normannia expulerat.” These expressions make the treatment of Eadgar more distinctly William’s own act than one would infer from the words of the Chronicle, and they might suggest that Eadgar’s Norman estates lay within the districts which were ceded to William. But it may only mean that Robert sent Eadgar away on William’s demand.