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11 - Normans in European History by Charles Homer Haskins · Normans in European History

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Speaker 1: Section ten of the Normans in European History by Charles
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Speaker 1: Homer Haskins. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
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Speaker 1: recording by Pamel and Agami, Chapter five, Normandy and France,
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Speaker 1: Part two. Such scenes, however, are only the striking episodes
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Speaker 1: in a series of campaigns, which are confused and complicated,
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Speaker 1: and do not lend themselves to clear narration. Decisive engagements
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Speaker 1: were rare, each side seeking rather to wear out the other.
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Speaker 1: Money was spent freely for allies and mercenaries. A contemporary
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Speaker 1: called the struggle one between the pounds sterling and the
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Speaker 1: pound of tour, and the advantage was on the side
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Speaker 1: of the pounds sterling by reason of their greater number.
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Speaker 1: There was usually a campaign in the spring and summer,
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Speaker 1: ending in a truce in the autumn, which the Church
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Speaker 1: tried to prolong into a lasting peace, but which soon
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Speaker 1: broke down in a new war. The wars were for
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Speaker 1: the most part border forays, in which the country was
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Speaker 1: burned and wasted far and wide, to the injury, chiefly
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Speaker 1: of the peasants, upon whom the burden of medieval warfare
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Speaker 1: mainly fell. First, destroy the land. Then the enemy was
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Speaker 1: the watchword booty and ransom were the object as well
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Speaker 1: as military advantages, so that even the contests between knights
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Speaker 1: had their sordid side, so definitely were they directed toward
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Speaker 1: taking profitable prisoners, while feudal notions of honor might cause
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Speaker 1: Richard to put out the eyes of fifteen prisoners and
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Speaker 1: send them to Philip under the guidance of one of
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Speaker 1: their number who had been left one eye, whereupon Philip
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Speaker 1: blind and an equal number of knights, and sent them
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Speaker 1: to Richard unto the guidance of the wife of one
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Speaker 1: of them. In order, says his eulogist, that no one
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Speaker 1: should think he was afraid of Richard or inferior to
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Speaker 1: him in force and courage. Footnote Guillaume le Breton, Philippie Yide,
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Speaker 1: Volume five, lines three hundred sixteen to three hundred twenty
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Speaker 1: seven en footnote. The brunt of the war fell on
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Speaker 1: Normandy and ultimately on the castles, which supplied the Duke's
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Speaker 1: lack of natural frontiers. To supplement the great interior fortresses
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Speaker 1: of pint Falaise, Argentine, Montfort and Rouen Henry, the first
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Speaker 1: began the organization of a series of fortifications on the
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Speaker 1: southern and eastern borders. Henry the second, we are told,
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Speaker 1: improved or renewed nearly all these strongholds, and especially Guisore,
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Speaker 1: the frontier gateway toward France, on which fortress the exchequer
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Speaker 1: role shows him expending twenty six hundred and fifty pounds
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Speaker 1: Angevin in a single year. These castles, remains of many
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Speaker 1: of which are still standing, were typical of the best
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Speaker 1: military architecture of their age, but they were inferior in
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Speaker 1: strength and scientific construction to the great fortresses of Christian Syria,
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Speaker 1: such as Kroc or Margot, which seemed to have gone
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Speaker 1: back to Byzantine and even Persian models. A keen warrior
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Speaker 1: like Richard had not spent his two years in Palestine
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Speaker 1: without gaining an expert knowledge of Eastern methods in the
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Speaker 1: art of war. We are not surprised to find that
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Speaker 1: he had Saracen soldiers and Syrian artillery with him in
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Speaker 1: his Norman campaigns, and that he made large use of
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Speaker 1: Oriental experience in strengthening his defenses. His masterpiece, of course,
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Speaker 1: was Chateau Gaillard, the saucy castle on the Seine, controlling
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Speaker 1: the passage of the river and its tributaries. In that
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Speaker 1: region of the Norman vexin, which was the great bone
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Speaker 1: of contention between the Plantagenets and the French kings. Having
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Speaker 1: first expropriated at great expense the lord of the region,
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Speaker 1: the Archbishop of Ruon, he fortified the adjacent island of
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Speaker 1: Andli and laid out a new town on the bank.
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Speaker 1: This he surrounded with water and reinforced with towers and battlements,
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Speaker 1: protecting the hole with a stockade across the river and
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Speaker 1: outlying works farther up. Then, on the great rock above,
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Speaker 1: he built the fortress, with its triangular advance work, its
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Speaker 1: elliptical citadel, and its circular keep, surrounded by a fouscae
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Speaker 1: cut almost vertically out of the rock. There was no
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Speaker 1: dead angle such as permitted sappers to reach the base
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Speaker 1: of rectilineal walls, but instead a sloping base down which
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Speaker 1: projectiles might ricochet. Nor was there, as in the corners
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Speaker 1: of square towers, any part of the surrounding area which
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Speaker 1: could not be reached by direct fire from within. The
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Speaker 1: approaches and the fouca, says Dillu la Fois, were covered
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Speaker 1: by the fire of the garrison right up to the
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Speaker 1: foot of the scarp, and no sapper could touch any
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Speaker 1: point in towers or walls, provided that the fortress was
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Speaker 1: under the direction of an experienced commander. Footnote the Chateau
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Speaker 1: Gallard in Memoir de la Caade medes Enscripsion, volume thirty six,
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Speaker 1: Chapter one, page three hundred thirty and footnote. This qualification
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Speaker 1: is important for the new type of fortification was designed
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Speaker 1: for an active defense, one might almost say, an offensive defense,
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Speaker 1: and not for the mere passive resistance with which the
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Speaker 1: older strategy had been content. The works at Anne Delis,
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Speaker 1: carried on largely under Richard's personal direction, occupied more than
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Speaker 1: a year of labor and cost about fifty thousand pounds angevin,
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Speaker 1: which we find distributed in the royal accounts over lumber
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Speaker 1: and stone and hardware, and among masons and carpenters and
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Speaker 1: stone cutters and lesser laborers. By the year eleven ninety nine,
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Speaker 1: Richard had recovered his Norman possessions save Ghisore and certain
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Speaker 1: castles on the border where Philip never lost his foothold,
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Speaker 1: and he had raised an effective barrier to French advance
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Speaker 1: in the Valley of the Seine. Strong allies were on
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Speaker 1: his side, and the diplomatic situation was decidedly in his favor.
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Speaker 1: Never had Philip been so hard pressed, and even the
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Speaker 1: friendly legate of the Pope could secure for him nothing
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Speaker 1: better than the retention of Guizore in the truce which
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Speaker 1: was then drawn up. And then a second stroke of fortune,
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Speaker 1: greater even than the captivity of eleven ninety two, came
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Speaker 1: to Philip's aid. Richard, impetuous and headstrong as ever, spoiled
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Speaker 1: all by a raid on his Aquitanian rebel in which
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Speaker 1: he lost his life. His energy, his military skill, and
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Speaker 1: his vivid personality had concealed the fundamental weakness of his
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Speaker 1: position against Franks. Antce his removal meant the swift fall
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Speaker 1: of the Norman Empire. At Richard's death, there were two
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Speaker 1: possible successors, his younger brother John, whom he had designated heir,
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Speaker 1: and his nephew Arthur, son of his elder brother Geoffrey
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Speaker 1: and Duke of Brittany. There was enough uncertainty in feudal
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Speaker 1: law to admit of a plausible case for either one,
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Speaker 1: but Arthur was only twelve, and John quickly took possession,
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Speaker 1: being crowned at Ruel in April and at Westminster in May. Arthur, however,
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Speaker 1: had the following of his bretel, and what was more important,
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Speaker 1: the support of Philip Augustus, who used Arthur against John
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Speaker 1: as he had used John against Richard and Richard against
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Speaker 1: his father. Philip confirmed Arthur as Count of Anjou, Maine
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Speaker 1: and Turennes, and soon brought him to Paris, where he
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Speaker 1: was betrothed to Philip's daughter. Nevertheless, the course of events
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Speaker 1: at first favored John. Philip was in the midst of
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Speaker 1: the great struggle with Pope Innocent the Third over the
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Speaker 1: divorce of his queen Ingeborg, and a treaty was signed
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Speaker 1: in twelve hundred by which, on giving up territory in
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Speaker 1: the Norman border and in central France and paying a
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Speaker 1: large relief of twenty thousand marks for his lands, John
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Speaker 1: was confirmed in his control of Anjou and Brittany, while
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Speaker 1: a visit to Paris, where he was splendidly received, seemed
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Speaker 1: to crown the Reconciliation. In a position, however, where all
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Speaker 1: possible strength and resourcefulness were required, John's defects of character
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Speaker 1: proved fatal. No one could depend upon him for loyalty,
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Speaker 1: judgment or even persistence, and he quickly earned his name
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Speaker 1: of soft sword Meanwhile, the legally minded Philip, while spending
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Speaker 1: money freely on John's followers and abating nothing of his
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Speaker 1: diplomatic and military efforts, brought to bear the weapons of law.
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Speaker 1: The revival of legal studies in the twelfth century had
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Speaker 1: given rise in Western Europe to a body of professional lawyers,
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Speaker 1: skilled in the Roman and the Canon law, and quick
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Speaker 1: to turn their learning to the advantage of the princes
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Speaker 1: whom they served. Philip had a number of such advisers
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Speaker 1: at his court, and they doubtless contributed to the more
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Speaker 1: lawyer like methods of doing things which made their appearance
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Speaker 1: in his reign. But it was feudal custom and not
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Speaker 1: Roman law, that he used against John. In law, John
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Speaker 1: was Philip's vassal, indeed, he had just confessed as much
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Speaker 1: in the Treaty of twelve hundred, and as such was
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Speaker 1: held to attend Philip's feudal court and subject himself to
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Speaker 1: its decision in disputes with other vassals. It might be
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Speaker 1: urged that the King of England was too great a
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Speaker 1: man to submit to such jurisdiction, and that the Duke
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Speaker 1: of Normandy had been in the habit of satisfying his
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Speaker 1: feudal obligations by a formal ceremony at the Norman frontier. Still,
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Speaker 1: the technical law was on the side of the King
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Speaker 1: of France, and as suzerin had at last come who
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Speaker 1: was able to translate theory into fact. In the course
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Speaker 1: of a series of adventures in Poitau, John carried off
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Speaker 1: the fiancee of one of his barons of the House
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Speaker 1: of Lusignan, who appealed to his superior lord, the King
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Speaker 1: of France. All this was in due form, but Philip
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Speaker 1: was no lion of justice, eager to redress injuries for
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Speaker 1: justice's sake, he waited nearly two years John's visit to Paris,
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Speaker 1: falling in the interval, and then, when he was ready
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Speaker 1: to execute sentence, promptly summoned John before the feudal court
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Speaker 1: of Peers. John neither came nor appeared through a representative,
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Speaker 1: and the court in April of twelve hundred and two
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Speaker 1: declared him deprived of all his lands for having refused
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Speaker 1: to obey his lord's commands or render the services due
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Speaker 1: from him as vassal. The capture of Arthur temporarily checked
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Speaker 1: Philip the Boy's murder by John in the course of
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Speaker 1: twelve hundred and three simply recoiled on the murderer. Whether
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Speaker 1: this crime led to a second condemnation by the court
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Speaker 1: of peers, as was alleged by the French at the
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Speaker 1: time of the aboordive invasion of England in twelve sixteen,
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Speaker 1: is a question which has been sharply discussed among scholars.
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Speaker 1: What has now become the orthodox view holds that there
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Speaker 1: was no second condemnation, But a clever case has recently
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Speaker 1: been made by Powick, who, minimizing the importance of the
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Speaker 1: accepted argument from the silence of immediate contemporaries, argues on
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Speaker 1: the basis of the Annals of Margham that there probably
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Speaker 1: was a second condemnation in twelve o four. After all,
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Speaker 1: the question is of subordinate importance, for Philip's effective action
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Speaker 1: was based on the trial of twelve hundred and two,
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Speaker 1: and by twelve hundred four John's fate was already sealed.
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Speaker 1: The decisive point in the campaign against Normandy was the
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Speaker 1: capture of Chateau Gallard, the key to the Sende Valley,
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Speaker 1: in May twelve hundred four, after a siege of six months,
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Speaker 1: which seems to have justified its designer, save for a
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Speaker 1: stone bridge which sheltered the engineers who undermined the outer wall.
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Speaker 1: Western Normandy fell before an attack from the side of Brittany.
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Speaker 1: The great fortresses of the center, Argentin, Falaise, and Gain
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Speaker 1: opened their gates to Philip, and with the surrender of
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Speaker 1: Rouen twenty fourth of June twelve o four, Philip was
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Speaker 1: Master of Normandy. John had lingered in England, doing nothing
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Speaker 1: to support the defense, and when he crossed at last
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Speaker 1: Inn twelve o six, he was obliged to sign a
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Speaker 1: final surrender of all the territories north of the Loire,
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Speaker 1: retaining only southern Poitau and Gascony. Gascony and England were
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Speaker 1: united for two centuries longer, but the only connection was
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Speaker 1: by sea. The control of the Sene and the Loire
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Speaker 1: had been lost, and with that passed away the Plantagenet Empire.
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Speaker 1: The results of the separation of Normandy from England had
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Speaker 1: been a favorite subject with historians, and especially with those
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Speaker 1: who approached the Middle Ages from the point of view
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Speaker 1: of modern politics and modern ideas of nationality. It all
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Speaker 1: seemed so natural that Normandy should belong with France and
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Speaker 1: not with England. Nationality, however, is an elusive thing, and
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Speaker 1: many forces besides geography, have made the modern map. England
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Speaker 1: in the Middle Ages had much more in common with
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Speaker 1: Normandy than she had with Wales or Scotland, while in
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Speaker 1: feeling as well as in space, the Irish Sea was
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Speaker 1: wider than the Channel. From the English point of view,
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Speaker 1: there was nothing inevitable in the loss of Normandy. On
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Speaker 1: the French side, the matters more obvious. If Paris was
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Speaker 1: to be the capital, it must control the Sene and
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Speaker 1: the Loire, and when it gained control of them, its
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Speaker 1: position in France was assured. The possession of Normandy meant
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Speaker 1: far more to France than to England. Moreover, the conquest
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Speaker 1: of Normandy cut England and France loose from each other.
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Speaker 1: The Anglo Norman barons must decide whether they would serve
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Speaker 1: the King of England or the King of France, and
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Speaker 1: they were quickly absorbed into the country with which they
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Speaker 1: threw in their lot. It was no longer possible to
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Speaker 1: play one set of interests against another. Turned back on themselves,
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Speaker 1: the English barons met John on their own ground and
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Speaker 1: won the Great Charter. So that the loss of Normandy
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Speaker 1: has a direct bearing on the growth English liberty. When
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Speaker 1: the Normans became French, concludes Powick, they did a great
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Speaker 1: deal more than bring their national epoch to a close.
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Speaker 1: They permitted the English once more to become a nation,
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Speaker 1: and they established the French state for all time. Footnote
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Speaker 1: the Loss of Normandy, page four hundred and forty nine,
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Speaker 1: and footnote. Viewed in this way, the end of Normandy
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Speaker 1: almost seems more glorious than Normandy itself. As was said
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Speaker 1: of Samson, the dead which he slew at his death
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Speaker 1: were more than they which he slew in his life.
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Speaker 1: But of course, in the larger sense, the work of
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Speaker 1: the Norman Empire was not ended in twelve o four.
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Speaker 1: For one thing, the administrative organization of the Norman Duchy
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Speaker 1: could not fail to exert an influence upon the French monarchy.
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Speaker 1: In spite of the great progress made by the Capecian
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Speaker 1: kings of the twelfth century, the Norman government still maintained
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Speaker 1: its marked superiority as a system of judicial and financial administration,
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Speaker 1: and Philip Augustus was not the man to neglect the
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Speaker 1: lessons it might have for him. The nature and extent
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Speaker 1: of Norman influence upon French institutions is a subject which
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Speaker 1: is still dark to us, and for lack of evidence,
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Speaker 1: may always remain dark. But there can be little doubt
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Speaker 1: that Norman precedents were followed at various points in the
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Speaker 1: development of the Parliament of Paris and in the elaboration
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Speaker 1: of the French financial system. In the main, however, the
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Speaker 1: influence was inevitably in the other direction, from France upon Normandy,
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Speaker 1: not from Normandy upon France. There was, it is true,
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Speaker 1: no sudden change. Philip respected vested interests, both in the
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Speaker 1: church and among the barons, and preserved Norman customs, so
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Speaker 1: that the Duchy long retained its individuality of law, of
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Speaker 1: local organization and of character, and secured its rights from
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Speaker 1: Louis the Tenth in the document of thirteen fifteen, the
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Speaker 1: schachtes o Norment, which has sometimes been compared in a
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Speaker 1: small way to the Great Charter. The coutumb de Normandi persisted,
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Speaker 1: like the customs of the other Great provinces until the
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Speaker 1: French Revolution, but it was a body of custom worked
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Speaker 1: out under the influence of the central government and gradually
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Speaker 1: absorbing the jurisprudence of the King's court. If the Norman
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Speaker 1: exchequer continued to sit at Rouen, it was presided over
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Speaker 1: by commissioners sent out from Paris. Even that most characteristic
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Speaker 1: of Norman institutions, trial by jury, was insensibly modified by
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Speaker 1: the new inquisitorial procedure of the thirteenth century, and silently
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Speaker 1: disappeared from the practice of the continent. As in law
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Speaker 1: and government, so in culture and social life, the forces
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Speaker 1: of centralization did their work none the less effectively because
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Speaker 1: they were gradual, and Normandy became a part of France.
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Speaker 1: There was, it is true, a period when Normandy was
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Speaker 1: once more united to England, this time as a conquered country.
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Speaker 1: Between fourteen seventeen and fourteen nineteen, Henry the Fifth subdued
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Speaker 1: Normandy in a series of well conducted campaigns, and he
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Speaker 1: and his son remained in possession of the duchy until
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Speaker 1: fourteen fifty. During this period of English rule, no effort
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Speaker 1: seems to have been made to restore earlier conditions which
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Speaker 1: had now been outgrown. Law, local government, fiscal organization continued unchanged.
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Speaker 1: English officials were of course appointed, and English immigration was
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Speaker 1: encouraged at the expense of the lands of the Normans
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Speaker 1: who had left the province. The first Norman university was
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Speaker 1: founded at Khnnes in the reign of Henry the sixth.
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Speaker 1: In the face, however, of all efforts at conciliation and
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Speaker 1: fair treatment, the population remained hostile. The idea that the
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Speaker 1: Englishman was a foreigner had grown up during two centuries
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Speaker 1: of absence. It was to crystallize definitely as the conception
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Speaker 1: of French nationality took form through the work of Joan
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Speaker 1: of Arc. Levis has reminded us footnote general view of
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Speaker 1: the political history of Europe, translated by Charles Gross, page
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Speaker 1: sixty four, that this war was not a conflict between
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Speaker 1: one nation and another, between the genius of one people
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Speaker 1: and that of another. Nevertheless, it continued and was fierce
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Speaker 1: as well as long. From year to year, the hatred
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Speaker 1: against the English increased. In contact with the foreigner, France
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Speaker 1: began to know herself like the ego. In contact with
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Speaker 1: the non ego vanquished, she felt the disgrace of defeat.
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Speaker 1: Acts of municipal and local patriotism preceded and heralded French patriotism,
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Speaker 1: which finally blossomed out in Joan of Arc and sanctified
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Speaker 1: itself with the perfume of a miracle. Out of France.
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Speaker 1: With the English, they left France and France came into existence.
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Speaker 1: In this rapid growth of French national consciousness, Normandy had
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Speaker 1: its full share, and some of its great scenes were
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Speaker 1: set on Norman soil. It was at Ruin that Joan
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Speaker 1: of Arc was tried and condemned by the Inquisition. It
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Speaker 1: was in the old marketplace of this same city that
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Speaker 1: the English soldiers discovered too late that they had burned
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Speaker 1: a saint. And so it came about that twenty years
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Speaker 1: later the Normans welcomed the troops of Charles the Seventh
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Speaker 1: and passed finally under French sway. Proud of its past,
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Speaker 1: proud also of its provincialism and local peculiarities, Normandy was
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Speaker 1: nevertheless French in feeling and interests, and grew more French
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Speaker 1: with time, under the unifying force of the absolute Monarchy,
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Speaker 1: the Revolution and the modern Republic. It ceased to be
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Speaker 1: a duchy in fourteen sixty seven. It ceased to be
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Speaker 1: even a political division with the creation of the modern
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Speaker 1: departments in seventeen ninety. Its last survival as an area
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Speaker 1: recognized by the government, the ecclesiastical province of Rouen, disappeared
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Speaker 1: with the final separation of church and state in nineteen
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Speaker 1: o five. The only unity which its five departments now
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Speaker 1: retain is that of the history and tradition of a
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Speaker 1: common past, of a petit patris now swallowed up in
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Speaker 1: the nation. Only at one point did the old Normandy
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Speaker 1: really maintain itself against the forces of centralization, namely in
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Speaker 1: the Channel Islands. Those bits of France fallen into the
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Speaker 1: sea and picked up by England, as Victor Hugo calls them,
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Speaker 1: These were not conquered by Philip or his successors, and
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Speaker 1: have remained from that day to this attached to the
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Speaker 1: English crown. They still have their bayee and vicomte, their knights, fees,
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Speaker 1: and feudal modes of tenure. The Norman dialect is still
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Speaker 1: their language, the kutumb de Normandy is still the basis
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Speaker 1: of their law, and one may still hear in disputes
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Speaker 1: concerning property in Jersey and Guernsey the old cry of
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Speaker 1: a row, which preserves one of the most archaic features
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Speaker 1: of Norman procedure. After all is said, it is in
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Speaker 1: England that the most permanent work of the Normans survives.
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Speaker 1: They created the English central government and impressed upon it
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Speaker 1: their conception of order and law, their feudalism, permeated English society.
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Speaker 1: Their customs shaped much of English jurisprudence. Their kings and
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Speaker 1: nobles were the dominant class in English government. Freemen could
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Speaker 1: never understand those who claimed that, as he declared, we
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Speaker 1: English are not ourselves but somebody else. The in fact, however,
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Speaker 1: remains that in a mixed race, and all races are
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Speaker 1: to some extent mixed, there is no such thing as ourselves.
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Speaker 1: And if the numerical preponderance in the English people is
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Speaker 1: largely that of pre Norman elements, the Norman strain has
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Speaker 1: exerted an influence out of all proportion to its numerical strength.
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Speaker 1: Without William the Conqueror and Henry the Second, the English
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Speaker 1: would not be themselves, whatever else they might have become.
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Speaker 1: For a more specific illustration, let us come back once
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Speaker 1: more to the jury. If the Jury died out in Normandy,
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Speaker 1: it survived in England, where it flourished in the fertile
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Speaker 1: soil of the popular local courts. It spread to the
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Speaker 1: British colonies and to the United States. It has in
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Speaker 1: recent times been reintroduced on the continent, but it is
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Speaker 1: still the same fundamental institution, bound by direct continuity with
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Speaker 1: the old Frankish procedure through the Norman inquests of the
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Speaker 1: twelfth century. Wherever the twelve good men and true are
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Speaker 1: gathered together, we can see the juries of Henry the
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Speaker 1: Second behind them. In such matters. The Norman influence is
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Speaker 1: thus as wide as the common law. We are all
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Speaker 1: heirs of the early Normans. As Freeman Weel says, we
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Speaker 1: can never be as if the Normans had never come
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Speaker 1: among us. We ever bear about us the signs of
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Speaker 1: his presence. Our colonists have carried those signs with them
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Speaker 1: into distant lands to remind men that settlers in America
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Speaker 1: and Australia came from a land which the Normans once
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Speaker 1: entered as a conqueror. Footnote William the Conqueror, Page two
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Speaker 1: and footnote. Our survey of Norman history must perhaps stop here,
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Speaker 1: but it needs to be rounded out in two directions.
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Speaker 1: We have been so busy with the external history of
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Speaker 1: the Norman Empire, and with the constitutional developments to which
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Speaker 1: it gave rise, that we have had no time to
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Speaker 1: examine the society and culture of Normandy in its flourishing
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Speaker 1: period of imperialism. We have been concentrating our attention so
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Speaker 1: exclusively on the dominions of the plantagenets that we have
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Speaker 1: left out of view that greater normandy to the south,
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Speaker 1: which constitutes one of the most brilliant chapters of Norman
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Speaker 1: achievement and one of the most fascinating subjects of European history.
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Speaker 1: These topics will be the themes of the three remaining lectures.
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Speaker 1: End of Section ten.