Transcript

26 - Popular History of France from the Earliest Times by Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot · Popular History of France from the Earliest Times

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Speaker 1: Section twenty six of Volume one of A Popular History
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Speaker 1: of France from the Earliest Times. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Volume
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Speaker 1: one of A Popular History of France from the Earliest
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Speaker 1: Times by Francois Guiseau, translated by Robert Black, Chapter fourteen,
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Speaker 1: The Kapations to the time of the Crusades, Part one,
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Speaker 1: from nine ninety six to eleven o eight, the first
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Speaker 1: three successors of Hugh Capet, his son Robert, his grandson
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Speaker 1: Henry the First, and his great grandson Philip the First
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Speaker 1: sat upon the throne of France. And during this long
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Speaker 1: space of one hundred and twelve years, the Kingdom of
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Speaker 1: France had not soothed, to say, any history parceled out
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Speaker 1: by virtue of the feudal system, between a multitude of princes, independent, isolated,
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Speaker 1: and scarcely sovereigns in their own dominions, keeping up anything
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Speaker 1: like frequent intercourse only with their neighbors, and loosely united
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Speaker 1: by certain rules or customs of vassalage to him amongst
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Speaker 1: them who bore the title of king, the France of
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Speaker 1: the eleventh century existed in little more than name. Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Aquitaine, Poitaut, Anjous,
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Speaker 1: Flanders and Nivernais were the real states and peoples, each
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Speaker 1: with its own distinct life and history. One single event,
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Speaker 1: the Crusade, united towards the end of the century those
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Speaker 1: scattered sovereigns and peoples in one common idea and one
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Speaker 1: combined action up to that point. Then let us conform
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Speaker 1: to the real state of the case and faithfully trace
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Speaker 1: out the features of the epoch, without attempting to introduce
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Speaker 1: a connection and a combination which did not exist. And
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Speaker 1: let us pass briefly in review of the isolated events
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Speaker 1: and personages which are still worthy of remembrance, and which
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Speaker 1: have remained historic without having belonged exactly to a national history.
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Speaker 1: Amongst events of this kind, one the conquest of England
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Speaker 1: in ten sixty six by William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy,
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Speaker 1: was so striking and exercised so much influence over the
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Speaker 1: destinies of France that in the incoherent and disconnected picture
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Speaker 1: of this eleventh century, particular attention must first be drawn
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Speaker 1: to the consequences as regarded France of that great Norman
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Speaker 1: enterprise after the sagacious Hugh Capet. The first three Kpeitians, Robert,
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Speaker 1: Henry the first and Philip the First, were very mediocre
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Speaker 1: individuals in character as well as intellect, and their personal
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Speaker 1: insignificance was one of the causes that produced the emptiness
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Speaker 1: of French history under their sway. Robert lacked neither physical
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Speaker 1: advantages nor moral virtues. He had a lofty figure, says
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Speaker 1: his biographer, hel God Archbishop of Bourse, hair smooth and
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Speaker 1: well arranged, a modest eye, a pleasant and gentle mouth,
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Speaker 1: a tolerably furnished beard, and high shoulders. He was versed
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Speaker 1: in all the sciences, the philosopher enough and in excellent music,
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Speaker 1: and so devoted to sacred literature that he never passed
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Speaker 1: a day without reading the Psalter and praying to the
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Speaker 1: Most High God. Together with Saint David, he composed several
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Speaker 1: hymns which were adopted by the church, and during a
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Speaker 1: pilgrimage he made to Rome, he deposited upon the altar
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Speaker 1: of Saint Peter his own Latin poems set to music.
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Speaker 1: He often went to the Church of San Denis clad
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Speaker 1: in his royal robes, and with his crown on his head,
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Speaker 1: and there he conducted the singing at Matins, Mass and vespers,
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Speaker 1: chanting with the monks, and himself calling upon them to sing.
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Speaker 1: When he sat in the consistory, he voluntarily styled himself
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Speaker 1: the bishop's client. Two centuries later, Saint Louis proved that
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Speaker 1: the virtues of the saint are not incompatible with the
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Speaker 1: qualities of the king, but the former cannot form a
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Speaker 1: substitute for the latter, and the qualities of the king
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Speaker 1: were to seek in Robert. He was neither warrior nor politician.
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Speaker 1: There is no sign that he ever gathered about him
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Speaker 1: to discuss affairs of state the Laic barons together with
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Speaker 1: the bar bishops. And when he interfered in the wars
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Speaker 1: of the great feudal lords, notably in Burgundy and Flanders,
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Speaker 1: it was with but little energy and too but little purpose.
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Speaker 1: He was hardly more potent in his family than in
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Speaker 1: his kingdom. It has already been mentioned that, in spite
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Speaker 1: of his preceptor Gerbert's advice, he had espoused Bertha, widow
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Speaker 1: of Eudes, Count of Blois, and he loved her dearly,
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Speaker 1: but the marriage was assailed by the Church on the
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Speaker 1: ground of kinship. Robert offered resistance, but afterwards gave way
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Speaker 1: before the excommunication pronounced by Pope Gregory the fifth and
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Speaker 1: then espoused Constance, daughter of William Chelfair, Count of Toulouse,
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Speaker 1: and forthwith, says the chronicler Raoul Glaber, were seen pouring
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Speaker 1: into France and Burgundy because of this queen, the most
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Speaker 1: vain and most frivolous of all men coming from Aquitaine.
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Speaker 1: In Averne, there were outlandish and outrages equally in their manners,
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Speaker 1: in their dress, in their arms, and the appointments of
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Speaker 1: their horses. Their hair came only half way down their head.
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Speaker 1: They shaved their beards like actors. They wore boots and
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Speaker 1: shoes that were not decent. And lastly, neither fidelity nor
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Speaker 1: security was to be looked for in any of their ties.
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Speaker 1: Alack that nation of Franks, which was wont to be
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Speaker 1: the most virtuous, and even the people of Burgundy too
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Speaker 1: were eager to follow these criminal examples, and before long
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Speaker 1: they reflected only too faithfully the depravity and infinity of
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Speaker 1: their models. The evil amounted to something graver than a
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Speaker 1: disturbance of court fashions. Robert had by constance three sons, Hugh,
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Speaker 1: Henry and Robert. First the eldest, and afterwards his two brothers,
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Speaker 1: maddened by the bad character and tyrannical exactions of their mother,
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Speaker 1: left the palace, and with due to Drux and Burgundy,
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Speaker 1: abandoning themselves in the royal domains and the neighborhood to
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Speaker 1: all kinds of depredations and excesses. Reconciliation was not without
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Speaker 1: great difficulty effected, and indeed peace was never really restored
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Speaker 1: in the royal family. Peace was everywhere the wish and
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Speaker 1: study of King Robert, but he succeeded better in maintaining
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Speaker 1: it with his neighbors than with his children. In ten
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Speaker 1: o six, he was on the point of having a
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Speaker 1: quarrel with Henry, the second Emperor of Germany, who was
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Speaker 1: more active and enterprising, but fortunately not less pious than himself.
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Speaker 1: The two sovereigns resolved to have an interview at the Meuse,
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Speaker 1: the boundary of their dominions. The question, amongst their respective
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Speaker 1: followings was which of the two should cross the river
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Speaker 1: to seek audience on the other bank, that is, in
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Speaker 1: the other's dominions. This would be a humiliation, it was
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Speaker 1: said the two learned princes remembered this saying of Ecclesiasticus,
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Speaker 1: the greater thou art the humbler, be thou in all things.
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Speaker 1: The Emperor therefore rose up early in the morning and
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Speaker 1: crossed with some of his people into the French King's territory.
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Speaker 1: They embraced with cordiality. The bishops, as was proper, celebrated
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Speaker 1: the sacrament of the Mass, and they afterwards sat down
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Speaker 1: to dinner. When the meal was over, King Robert offered
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Speaker 1: Henry immense presence of gold and silver, press stones, and
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Speaker 1: a hundred horses. Richly kepirzaned, each carrying a curras and
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Speaker 1: a helmet, and he added that all the Emperor did
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Speaker 1: not accept of these gifts would be so much deducted
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Speaker 1: from their friendship. Henry, seeing the generosity of his friend,
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Speaker 1: took of the whole only a book containing the Holy Gospel,
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Speaker 1: set with gold and precious stones, and a golden amulet,
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Speaker 1: wherein was a tooth of Saint Vincent, priest and martyr.
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Speaker 1: The Empress likewise accepted only two golden cups. Next day,
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Speaker 1: King Robert crossed with his bishops into the territories of
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Speaker 1: the Emperor, who received him magnificently, and after dinner, offered
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Speaker 1: him a hundred pounds of pure gold. The king, in
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Speaker 1: his turn, accepted only two golden cups, and after having
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Speaker 1: ratified their pact of friendship, they returned each to his
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Speaker 1: own dominions. Let us add to this summary of Robert's
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Speaker 1: reign some facts which are characteristic of the epoch in
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Speaker 1: a d. One thousand. In consequence of the sense attached
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Speaker 1: to certain words in the Sacred Books, many Christians expected
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Speaker 1: the end of the world. The time of expectation was
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Speaker 1: full of anxieties, plagues, famines, and diverse accidents, which then
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Speaker 1: took place in diverse quarters were an additional aggravation. The
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Speaker 1: churches were crowded, penances, offerings, absolutions, all the forms of
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Speaker 1: invocation and repentance multiplied rapidly. A multitude of souls in
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Speaker 1: submission or terror, prepared to appear before their judge and
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Speaker 1: after what catastrophes, in the midst of what gloom or
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Speaker 1: of what light? These were fearful questions of which men's
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Speaker 1: imaginations were exhausted in forestalling the solution. When the last
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Speaker 1: day of the tenth and the first of the eleventh
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Speaker 1: centuries were passed, it was like a general regeneration. It
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Speaker 1: might have been said that time was beginning over again,
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Speaker 1: and the work was commenced of rendering the Christian world
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Speaker 1: worthy of the future, especially in Italy and Gaul. Says
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Speaker 1: the chronicler Raoul glaber Men took in hand the reconstruction
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Speaker 1: of the basilicas, although the greater part had no need
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Speaker 1: thereof Christian people seemed to vie one with the which
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Speaker 1: should erect the most beautiful. It was as if the world,
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Speaker 1: shaking itself together and casting off its old garments, would
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Speaker 1: have decked itself with the white robes of christ Christian
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Speaker 1: art in its earliest form of the Gothic style, dates
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Speaker 1: from this epoch. The power and riches of the Christian
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Speaker 1: Church in its different institutions received at this crisis of
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Speaker 1: the human imagination a fresh impulse. Other facts, some lamentable
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Speaker 1: and some salutary, began about this epoch to assume in
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Speaker 1: French history a place which was destined before long to
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Speaker 1: become an important one. Piles of fagots were set up,
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Speaker 1: first at Orleans and then at Toulse for the punishment
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Speaker 1: of heretics. The heretics of the day were Manicheans. King
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Speaker 1: Robert and Queen Constance sanctioned by their presence. This return
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Speaker 1: to human sacrifices offered to God as a penalty inflicted
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Speaker 1: on mental offenders against his word. At the same time,
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Speaker 1: a double portion of ire blazed forth against the Jews.
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Speaker 1: What have we to do? It was said, with going
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Speaker 1: abroad TOI to make war on Mussulmans? Have we not
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Speaker 1: in the very midst of us the greatest enemies of
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Speaker 1: Jesus Christ amongst Christians. Acts of oppression and violence on
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Speaker 1: the part of the great against the small became so
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Speaker 1: excessive and so frequent, that they excited in country parts,
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Speaker 1: particularly in Normandy, insurrections which the insurgents tried to organize
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Speaker 1: into permanent resistance in several counties of Normandy. Says William
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Speaker 1: of Jumiege, all the peasants, meeting and conventicles, resolved to
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Speaker 1: live according to their own wills and their own laws,
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Speaker 1: not only in the heart of the forests, but also
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Speaker 1: on the borders of the rivers, and without care for
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Speaker 1: any established rites. To accomplish this design, these mobs of
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Speaker 1: madmen elected each two deputies who were to form at
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Speaker 1: the central point, an assembly charged with the execution of
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Speaker 1: their decrees. So soon as the Duke Richard the second
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Speaker 1: was informed thereof, he sent a large body of armed
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Speaker 1: men to suppress this audacity in the country parts, and
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Speaker 1: to disperse this rustic assembly. In execution of his orders,
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Speaker 1: the deputies of the peasantry and many other rebels were
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Speaker 1: forthwith arrested, Their feet and hands were cut off, and
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Speaker 1: they were sent home thus mutilated, to deter their fellows
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Speaker 1: from such enterprises, and to render them more prudent, for
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Speaker 1: fear of worse. After this experience, the peasants gave up
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Speaker 1: their meetings and returned to their plows. This is a
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Speaker 1: literal translation of the Monkish chronicler, who was far from
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Speaker 1: favorable to the insurgent peasants, and was more for applauding
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Speaker 1: the suppression than justifying the insurrection. The suppression, though undoubtedly
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Speaker 1: effectual for the moment and in the particular spots it reached,
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Speaker 1: produced no general or lasting effect. About a century after
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Speaker 1: the Cold Recital of William Jimmy, a poet chronicler Robert Weiss,
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Speaker 1: in his Romance of Rue, a History and Verse of
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Speaker 1: Rollo in the First Dukes of Normandy, related the same
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Speaker 1: facts with far more sympathetic feeling and poetical coloring. The
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Speaker 1: lords do us not but ill he makes the Norman
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Speaker 1: peasants say with them, we have nor gain nor profit
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Speaker 1: from our labors. Every day is for us a day
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Speaker 1: of suffering, toil and weariness. Every day we have our
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Speaker 1: cattle taken from us for road work and forced service.
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Speaker 1: We have plants and grievances, old and new exactions please,
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Speaker 1: and processes without end. Money please, market, please, road, please, forest, please, mill, please, blackmail, please,
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Speaker 1: watch and ward please. There are so many provosts, bailiffs
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Speaker 1: and sergeants that we have not one hour's piece. Day
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Speaker 1: by day they ruin us down, seize our moveables, and
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Speaker 1: drive us from our lands. There is no security for
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Speaker 1: us against the lords, and no pact is binding with them.
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Speaker 1: Why suffer all this evil to be done to us
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Speaker 1: and not get out of our plight? Are we not
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Speaker 1: men even as they are? Have we not the same stature,
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Speaker 1: the same limbs, the same strength for suffering? All we
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Speaker 1: need is courage. Let us then bind ourselves together by
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Speaker 1: an oath. Let us swear to support one another. And
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Speaker 1: if they will make war on us, have if we
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Speaker 1: not for one night, thirty or forty young peasants, nimble
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Speaker 1: and ready to fight with club, with boar, spear, with arrow,
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Speaker 1: with axe, and even with stones if they have not weapons.
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Speaker 1: Let us learn to resist the knights, and we shall
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Speaker 1: be free to cut down trees, to hunt and fish
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Speaker 1: after our fashion, and we shall work our will in
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Speaker 1: flood and field and wood. Here we have no longer
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Speaker 1: the short account and severe estimate of an indifferent spectator.
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Speaker 1: It is the cry of popular rage and vengeance, reproduced
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Speaker 1: by the lively imagination of an angered poet. Undoubtedly, the
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Speaker 1: Norman peasants of the twelfth century did not speak of
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Speaker 1: their miseries with such descriptive ability and philosophical feeling as
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Speaker 1: were lent to them by Robert Wass. They did not
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Speaker 1: meditate the democratic revolution of which he attributes to them
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Speaker 1: the idea and almost the plan. But the deeds of
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Speaker 1: violence and oppression against which they rose were very real,
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Speaker 1: and they exerted themselves to escape by reciprocal violence from
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Speaker 1: intolerable suffering. Thence date those alternations of demagogic revolt and
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Speaker 1: tyrannical suppress which have so often ensanguined the land and
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Speaker 1: put in peril the very foundations of social order. Insurrections
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Speaker 1: became of so atrocious a kind that the atrocious chastisements
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Speaker 1: with which they were visited seemed equally natural and necessary.
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Speaker 1: It needed long ages, a repetition of civil wars and
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Speaker 1: terrible political shocks, to put an end to this brutal
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Speaker 1: chaos which gave birth to so many evils and reciprocal crimes,
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Speaker 1: and to bring about amongst the different classes of the
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Speaker 1: French population equitable and truly human relations. So quick spreading
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Speaker 1: and contagious is evil amongst men, and so difficult to
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Speaker 1: extirpate in the name of justice and truth. However, even
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Speaker 1: in the midst of this cruel egotism and this gross
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Speaker 1: unreason of the tenth and eleventh centuries, the necessity, from
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Speaker 1: a moral and social point of view, of struggling against
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Speaker 1: such disgusting irregularities made itself felt found zealous advocates from
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Speaker 1: this epoch are to be dated the first efforts to
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Speaker 1: establish in different parts of France what was called God's
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Speaker 1: Peace God's truce. The words were well chosen for prohibiting
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Speaker 1: at the same time oppression and revolt, for it needed
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Speaker 1: nothing less than law and the voice of God to
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Speaker 1: put some restraint upon the barbarous manners and passions of men,
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Speaker 1: great or small, lord or peasant. It is the peculiar
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Speaker 1: and glorious characteristic of Christianity to have so well understood
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Speaker 1: the primitive and permanent evil in human nature, that it
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Speaker 1: fought against all the great iniquities of mankind and exposed
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Speaker 1: them in principle, even when in point of general practice
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Speaker 1: it neither hoped nor attempted to sweep them away. Bishops,
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Speaker 1: priests and monks were, in their personal lives and in
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Speaker 1: the councils of the church, the first propagators of God's
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Speaker 1: peace or truce, and in more than one locality they
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Speaker 1: induced the Layic lords to follow their lead. In eleven
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Speaker 1: sixty four, Hugh, the second Count of Rhodes, in concert
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Speaker 1: with his brother Hugh, Bishop of Rhodes, and the notables
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Speaker 1: of the district, established the peace in the Diocese of Rodes.
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Speaker 1: And this, it is said the learned Benedictines of the
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Speaker 1: eighteenth century in the art of verifying dates, which gave
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Speaker 1: rise to the toll of Commune Paix or Pesare, which
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Speaker 1: is still collected in Rugou. King Robert always showed himself
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Speaker 1: favorable to this pacific work. And he is the first
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Speaker 1: among the five kings of France. In other respects very
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Speaker 1: different himself Saint Louis, Louis the twelfth, Henry the fourth,
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Speaker 1: and Louis the sixteenth, who were particularly distinguished for sympathetic
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Speaker 1: kindness and anxiety for the popular welfare. Robert had a
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Speaker 1: kindly feeling for the weak and poor. Not only did
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Speaker 1: he protect them on occasion against the powerful, but he
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Speaker 1: took pains to conceal their defaults. And in his church
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Speaker 1: and at his table, he suffered himself to be robbed
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Speaker 1: without complaint, that he might not have to denounce and
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Speaker 1: punish the robbers. Wherefore, at his death, says his biographer,
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Speaker 1: held God, there were great mourning and intolerable grief. A
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Speaker 1: countless number of widows and orphans sorrowed for the many
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Speaker 1: benefits received from him. They did beat their breasts and
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Speaker 1: went to and from his tomb crying. Whilst Robert was
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Speaker 1: king ordered all we lived in peace we had nought
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Speaker 1: to fear. May the soul of that pious Father, that
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Speaker 1: Father of the Senate, that Father of all good, be
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Speaker 1: blessed and saved. May it mount up and dwell forever
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Speaker 1: with Jesus Christ. The king of kings. Though not so
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Speaker 1: pious nor so good as Robert, His son Henry the
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Speaker 1: First and his grandson Philip the First were neither more
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Speaker 1: energetic nor more glorious kings. During their long reigns, the
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Speaker 1: former from ten thirty one to ten sixty and the
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Speaker 1: latter from ten sixty to eleven o eight, no important
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Speaker 1: and well prosecuted design distinguished their government. Their public life
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Speaker 1: was passed at one time in petty warfare without decisive
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Speaker 1: results against such and such vassals, at another in acts
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Speaker 1: of capricious intervention in the quarrels of their vassals amongst themselves.
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Speaker 1: Their home life was neither less irregular nor conducted with
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Speaker 1: more wisdom and regard for the public interest. King Robert
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Speaker 1: had not succeeded in keeping his first wife, Bertha of Burgundy,
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Speaker 1: and his second Constance of Aquitaine, with her imperious, malevolent, avaricious,
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Speaker 1: meddlesome disposition, reduced him to so abject the state that
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Speaker 1: he never gave a gratuity to any of his servants
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Speaker 1: without saying, take care that Constance know not of it.
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Speaker 1: After Robert's death, Constance having become regent for her eldest son,
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Speaker 1: Henry the First, forthwith conspired to dethrone him and to
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Speaker 1: put in his place her second son, Robert, who was
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Speaker 1: her favorite. Henry, on being delivered by his mother's death,
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Speaker 1: from her tyranny and intrigues, was thrice married, but his
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Speaker 1: first two marriages with two German princesses, one the daughter
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Speaker 1: of the Emperor Conrad the Salik, the other of the
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Speaker 1: Emperor Henry the Third, were so far from happy that
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Speaker 1: in ten fifty one he sent into Russia to Kiev
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Speaker 1: in search of his third wife, Anne, the daughter of
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Speaker 1: Tsar Yaroslav the Halt. She was a modest creature who
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Speaker 1: lived quietly up to the death of her husband in
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Speaker 1: ten sixty and two years afterward, in the reign of
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Speaker 1: her son Philip the First, rather than returned to her
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Speaker 1: own country, married Raoul, Count of Alois, who put away
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Speaker 1: to marry her his second wife, Hackney called Eleanor. The
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Speaker 1: divorce was opposed at Rome before Pope Alexander the Third,
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Speaker 1: to whom the Archbishop of Rim wrote upon the subject,
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Speaker 1: our kingdom is the scene of great troubles. The Queen
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Speaker 1: Mother has espoused Count Raoul, which has mightily displeased the King.
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Speaker 1: As for the lady whom Raoul has put away, we
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Speaker 1: have recognized the justice of the complaints she has preferred
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Speaker 1: before you, and the falsity of the pretext on which
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Speaker 1: she put her away. The Pope ordered the Count to
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Speaker 1: take back his wife. Raoul would not obey and was excommunicated,
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Speaker 1: but he made light of it, and the Princess Anne
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Speaker 1: of Russia actually reconciled, apparently to Philip the First, lived
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Speaker 1: tranquility in France, where in ten seventy five, shortly after
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Speaker 1: the death of her second husband, Count Raoul, her signature
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Speaker 1: was still attached to a charter side by side with
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Speaker 1: that of the King her son. The marriages of Philip
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Speaker 1: the First brought even more trouble and scandal than those
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Speaker 1: of his father and grandfather. At nineteen years of age
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Speaker 1: in ten seventy two, he he had espoused Bertha, daughter
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Speaker 1: of Florina, first Count of Holland, and in ten seventy
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Speaker 1: eight he had by her the son who was destined
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Speaker 1: to succeed him with the title of Louis the Fat.
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Speaker 1: But twenty years later ten ninety two, Philip took a
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Speaker 1: dislike to his wife, put her away and banished her
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Speaker 1: to montreuseu Mar on the ground of prohibited consequinity. He
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Speaker 1: had conceived there is no knowing when a violent passion
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Speaker 1: for a woman celebrated for her beauty. Bertrode, the fourth
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Speaker 1: wife for three years, passed of Fouque Deouhenne, the brawler,
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Speaker 1: Count of Anjou. Philip, having thus packed off Bertha, sent
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Speaker 1: out for Tour, where Bertrode happened to be with her husband.
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Speaker 1: There in the Church of Saint John, during the benediction
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Speaker 1: of the baptismal Fonts, they entered into mutual engagements. Philip
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Speaker 1: went away again, and a few days afterwards, Bertrode was
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Speaker 1: carried off by some people he had left in the
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Speaker 1: neighborhood of Tour and joined him at Orleans. Nearly all
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Speaker 1: the bishops of France, and amongst others, the most learned
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Speaker 1: and respected of them, Eve Bishop of Shart, refused there
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Speaker 1: benediction to this shocking marriage, and the king had great
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Speaker 1: difficulty in finding a priest to render him. That service.
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Speaker 1: Then commenced between Philip and the heads of the Catholic Church,
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Speaker 1: popes and bishops, a struggle which, with negotiation upon negotiation,
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Speaker 1: and excommunication upon excommunication, lasted twelve years without the kings
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Speaker 1: being able to get his marriage canonically recognized, And though
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Speaker 1: he promised to send away Bertrod, he was not content
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Speaker 1: with merely keeping her with him, but he openly jeered
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Speaker 1: at excommunication and interdicts. It was the custom, says William
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Speaker 1: of Malmesbury, at the places where the King sojourned for
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Speaker 1: divine service to be stopped. And as soon as he
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Speaker 1: was moving away, all the bells began to peal, and
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Speaker 1: then Philip would cry, as he laughed like one beside himself.
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Speaker 1: Dost here, my love, how they are ringing us out?
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Speaker 1: At last? In eleven o four, the Bishop of Shart himself,
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Speaker 1: wearied by the persistency of the King, and by sight
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Speaker 1: of the trouble in which the prolongation of the interdict
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Speaker 1: was plunging, the King wrote to the Pope Pascal the second,
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Speaker 1: I do not presume to offer you advice. I only
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Speaker 1: desire to warn you that it were well to show
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Speaker 1: for a while some condescension towards the weaknesses of the man,
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Speaker 1: so far as consideration for his salvation may permit, and
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Speaker 1: to rescue the country from the critical state to which
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Speaker 1: it is reduced by the excommunication. Of this prince. The
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Speaker 1: Pope consequently sent instructions to the bishops of the realm,
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Speaker 1: and they, at the King's summons, met at Paris on
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Speaker 1: the first of December eleven o four. One of them, Lambert,
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Speaker 1: Bishop of Arras, wrote to the Pope, we sent as
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Speaker 1: a deputation to the King, the bishops of John of
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Speaker 1: Orleans and Gallon of Paris, charged to demand of him
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Speaker 1: whether he would conform to the clauses and conditions set
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Speaker 1: forth in your letters, and whether he were determined to
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Speaker 1: give up the unlawful intercourse which had made him guilty
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Speaker 1: before God. The King, having answered, without being disconcerted, that
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Speaker 1: he was ready to make atonement to God, and the
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Speaker 1: Holy Roman Church, was introduced to the assembly. He came
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Speaker 1: barefooted in a posture of devotion and humility, confessing his
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Speaker 1: sin and promising to purge him of this excommunication by
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Speaker 1: expiatory deeds, and thus by your authority he earned absolution. Then,
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Speaker 1: laying his hands on the book of the Holy Gospels,
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Speaker 1: he took an oath in the following terms to renounce
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Speaker 1: his guilty and unlawful marriage. Here can thou lambered Bishop
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Speaker 1: of ARUs, who art here in place of the apostolic pontiff.
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Speaker 1: And let the archbishops and bishops here present hearken unto me, I, Philip,
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Speaker 1: King of the French, do promise not to go back
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Speaker 1: to my sin and to break off holy with the
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Speaker 1: criminal intercourse I have heretofore kept up with Burtrod. I
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Speaker 1: do promise that henceforth I will have with her no
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Speaker 1: intercourse or companionship, save in the presence of persons beyond suspicion.
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Speaker 1: I will observe faithfully and without turning aside these promises
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Speaker 1: in the sense set forth in the letters of the Pope,
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Speaker 1: and as ye understand, so help me God, and by
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Speaker 1: these holy Gospels. Bertrode, at the moment of her release
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Speaker 1: from excommunication, took in person the same oath on the
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Speaker 1: Holy Gospel. According to the statement of the learned Benedictines,
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Speaker 1: who studiously examined into this incident, it is doubtful whether
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Speaker 1: Philip the First broke off all intercourse with Bertrode. Two
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Speaker 1: years after his absolution, on the tenth of October eleven
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Speaker 1: o six, he arrived at Anjir on a Wednesday, says
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Speaker 1: a contemporary chronicler, accompanied by the queen named Bertrode and
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Speaker 1: was there received by Count Fuchs and all the Angevines,
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Speaker 1: cleric and laek with great honors. The day after his arrival,
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Speaker 1: on Thursday, the monks of Saint Nicholas, introduced by the Queen,
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Speaker 1: presented themselves before the Queen and humbly prayed him, in
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Speaker 1: concert with the Queen, to countenance for the salvation of
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Speaker 1: his soul and of the Queen and his relatives and friends,
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Speaker 1: all acquisitions made by them in his dominions, or that
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Speaker 1: they might hereafter make by gift or purchase, and to
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Speaker 1: be pleased to place His seal on their titles to
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Speaker 1: the property. And the King granted their request end of
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Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen, Part one