“A violent and difficult personality”. It is in these terms that the historian Lucien Musset defines Robert the Magnificent ,6th Duke of Normandy (1). Violent, quick to draw his sword, the son of Duke Richard II was like all the great lords of his time. An ambiguous personality like that of Robert , as is that of his great-grandfather Rollo. Spoliators of Church property then builder of abbeys, loyal vassal of the King of France and tumultuous neighbor with hegemonic ambitions for the duchies of Flanders and Brittany... Robert should be considered as a man of his time, a reflection of the influences and changes taking place in society in the 11th century.
A controversial assumption of office and the establishment of ducal power
Robert (1010-1027-1035) is the second son of the Duke of Normandy Richard II. Details about his upbringing are not known. On the death of his father in 1026, he inherited the county of Hiémois when his older brother became Duke of Normandy under the name of Richard III.
The latter's premature death, poisoned during a dinner, taints Robert's person. The English monk William of Malmesbury explicitly accuses him of the murder of his brother but no concrete proof has ever been brought to this effect. It nevertheless appears that Robert, by obtaining the ducal crown, is the main beneficiary of Richard's death, thereby uniting his father's former territorial possessions into a single domain.
Aged 17, the new master of Normandy holds a power contested and coveted by several of his cousins, the bastard sons of his predecessors who are grouped under the designation of “Richardides (2)”. The revolt was stirred up by the duke's uncle, the Archbishop of Rouen Robert “the Dane”, an equally controversial character:married religious, ecclesiastic and lay lord (3). His attempts to overthrow his nephew led Duke Robert to undertake the siege of his capital in 1027/1028 after which he was ordered to leave the duchy. He took refuge in the court of King Robert II the Pious of France, the Duke's overlord.
The removal of the leader of the opponents from Robert does not lead to the end of the fights. A new rebellion broke out in 1028, led this time by Richard's half-brother, Hugues, the bishop of Bayeux who did not accept being kept away from the ducal council. While he also undertook to go to the royal domain to ask for the king's support and obtain troops, Duke Robert seized the fortress of Ivry, possession of Hugh, and forced the latter to request the peace. This is signed on the condition that Hugh goes into exile (he does not return until 1032) and that the Château d'Ivry and all its outbuildings are attached to the Duke's domain.
The last revolt was that of the Count of Bellême, Guillaume I Talvas, who controlled southern Normandy from Alençon and refused to swear allegiance to Robert . After the siege and the capture of the town of Domfront, Guillaume surrenders, begging Robert to forgive him, a pardon he offers not without having him parade in front of his entire army on all fours and with the saddle of a horse on his shoulders. (4). The count died some time later, of humiliation and grief on learning of the death of several of his sons at the battle of Saint-Quentin-de-Blavou (5) against the ducal troops (6).
To finance his war expeditions, Duke Robert pursued a policy opposed to that of his predecessors towards religious institutions. He plundered the property of the Church on numerous occasions and redistributed it to his vassals to secure their service. His uncle Robert le Danois, the archbishop of Rouen, pronounces against him an excommunication and probably an anathema throughout Normandy so that he ceases his exactions against the Church. The maneuver works and Robert, who cannot fight against his uncle's spiritual attacks, mends his ways and restores the monopolized goods (7). In an act of restitution of the abbey of the Sainte-Trinité de Fécamp (8), Robert made amends:"Know that all my faithful present and future that, under the pressure of some of my advisers who are not concerned with fairness towards the Church of God, I gave my knights various possessions of the Holy Trinity Monastery. But soon (...) understanding that I acted badly, I handed over to this church all the property of which it had been stripped (9)”. Robert the Dane is also authorized to return to Normandy where he takes over the administration of his domains. According to historian Lucien Musset, he was the instigator of the change that took place in the Duke's policy towards the Church and in the respect he gradually devoted to religious institutions and discourse.
Numerous military interventions outside the Duchy
The line of the Dukes of Normandy has long been associated with English royalty through the marriage of his great-aunt Emma (the daughter of William I Longsword) to the King of England. England Ethelred II and their children, Edward and Alfred Aetheling, exiled to the court of the Duke of Normandy Richard I during the Danish invasion of the Kingdom of England in 1013. Edward, now an adult, seeks to resume the English crown in favor of Knut the Great who succeeded his father (10). He asked for military support from his cousin, Duke Robert, who was arming a fleet at Fécamp. The project was aborted due to a storm which prevented the landing of the Norman troops.
At the same time, Duke Alain III of Brittany, a nephew of the Duke of Normandy Richard II, entered into rebellion to emancipate himself from Norman tutelage over his duchy(11) . Robert turns his ships and his troops against him by attacking the Dol region. The following year, in 1030, Duke Alain tried to occupy Avranchin but had to give in after a Norman counter-attack led to the massacre of his troops. The chronicler and historian Guillaume de Jumièges writes that during the battle, the Breton corpses were “as numerous as the sheep”. The Archbishop of Rouen, uncle of the two dukes, proposes a meeting to initiate peace talks. This takes place at Mont-Saint-Michel, it confirms the Norman tutelage over the Breton duchy and Alain recognizes himself as Robert's vassal.
In 1034, Robert had to return to Brittany to arbitrate a conflict that arose after the death of the Duchess Havoise, opposing Alain III to his brother Eude who claimed a share of the inheritance from him paternal. His intervention, associated with that of the Bishop of Vannes, succeeded in reconciling the two brothers and his authority over the Duchy of Brittany grew.
Robert, a model vassal and ally
The house of the Dukes of Normandy is attached to that of the Kings of France. The Normans favored the Capetians in their accession to the throne of France and were linked by marriage:Adèle of France, daughter of King Robert II of France is the wife of Duke Richard III and Gerloc, the daughter of Rollo is the beautiful -mother of Hugues Capet.
On July 20, 1031, King Robert II the Pious died and the crown went to his son Henry. Queen Constance opposes this choice and has Robert, her youngest child, crowned on the throne and chases Robert who leaves to take refuge in Fécamp at the court of Duke Robert. The latter raises an army which besieges the supporters of Constance at Poissy while Henry of France defeats the armies of his brother Robert at the battle of Villeneuve-Saint-Georges. Constance, defeated, retired to Melun and died there in 1034. Henry made peace with his younger brother (12) before being crowned (under the name of Henry I). He offers the French Vexin, that is to say the part between the Epte and the Oise to Robert, with in particular the fortresses of Chaumont and Pontoise to thank him for his help.
Still in 1031, Robert sealed an alliance with the Count of Flanders Baldwin IV "the Bearded" by offering him the hand of his sister Éléonore (or Aliénor). The son of the Count of Flanders, from a first marriage(13) leads a rebellion against his father who takes refuge in Normandy to ask for support from Duke Robert, his brother-in-law. The associated Norman and Flemish troops were victorious at the Battle of Oudenaarde in Belgium, after which Baudouin IV reinvested his lands. The alliance that binds the two men is part of time and leads in 1050 to the marriage of Guillaume, bastard of Robert and Mathilde of Flanders, granddaughter of Baudouin IV.
Robert and Arlette
Duke Robert, strangely enough, never married. On the other hand, we know him, two "frilla". A Frilla is a concubine. For the Church, they have no rights as a wife and the children born of this union do not have any either, in particular on questions of dynastic succession. The marriage "More danico" which means "in the Danish way" designates a mode of polygamy in force among the Vikings and practiced by the Normans after their Christianization. The children of these unions appear in Norman law as legitimate. The examples of Guillaume Long-Sword, son of Rollo and his more danico wife Poppa who inherited from his father, and Guillaume le Bastard who inherited the duchy of Duke Robert are the best known.
Orderic Vital was the first chronicler in the 12th century to mention the person of Arlette, but it was above all Wace and Benoit de Saint-Maure who wrote a detailed account in the 1170s and imaginary of the meeting of Duke Robert and Arlette de Falaise:Robert hunts with his friends near the city of cliff. He is seduced by a washerwoman who is busy at a fountain. This washerwoman, Arlette, the daughter of a tanner(14) is invited to the Duke's castle and agrees to go there on the condition of coming on horseback through the main door of the castle. During the night that follows, Arlette has a dream or a tree sprung from her belly, and whose branches cover Normandy, the Channel and England (15). Shortly after, William was born, who a few decades later realized his mother's premonitory dream by seizing the throne of England. The couple have another child, Adélaïde, who becomes Comtesse d'Aumale.
Unable to elevate Arlette to the rank of countess because of the baseness of her extractions, Robert would have had her married to one of his vassals, Herluin de the Risle. They have two children together, Odo who becomes Bishop of Bayeux and Robert, who becomes Count of Mortain.
Robert and the Millennium of Redemption
The year 1033 officially marks the thousandth anniversary of the death of Christ. The millennial currents multiply and see in each singular event a proof of the end of Times. A total solar eclipse on June 29 this year sows singular fear throughout northern France. Other ''signs'', less factual, feed the discourse on the coming of the Apocalypse. We highlight the abandonment of some of the Christian values by pointing the finger at the behavior of the lords who no longer obey the king and who behave like tyrants with their subjects, who plunder the domains and the goods of the Church...
A return to pure faith appears to be the solution to combat this evil; return which is reflected in the development of pilgrimages in France (Mont-Saint-Michel, Saint-Martin-de-Tours) and abroad (Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle, Rome, Jerusalem). The power of the Church is seen reinforced by the bishops who form a relay of the papal policy, and who manage to impose the Peace and Truce of God on the whole of the kingdom. It was in this mystical impulse that Duke Robert, at the age of 25, decided to make the pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Some see it as a desire to be forgiven for his sins committed against the Church at the beginning of his reign, others have seen it as a way to atone for the murder of his brother Richard...
The exact reasons for his departure remain a mystery, but on January 13, 1035, he took his vow of pilgrimage "considering that this life was short and fragile (. ..) he chooses to make himself a poor man of Christ, rather than burn in the flames of hell”. He associated his only son, Guillaume, aged 7, with the ducal crown by having him recognized by all his vassals. The regency is provided by Duke Alain of Brittany and his uncle Robert the Dane the Archbishop of Rouen.
From Rouen, he went to Rome then to Constantinople where he was received by Emperor Michael IV the Paphlagonian . He then fell ill and entered Jerusalem on a stretcher “carried to paradise by living devils (16)” he said to a Norman pilgrim, pointing out the Saracens who transported him. He died on his way back to the Church of Saint Sophia in Nicaea on July 2, 1035. From his pilgrimage, he earned the nickname "Liberal" or "Magnificent (17)" for the largesse he showed, and perhaps the remission of his sins, but his untimely death plunges the duchy into anarchy.
His vassals, notably the ''old Normans'', who are traditionally hostile to ducal politics, refuse to recognize William's legitimacy on the pretext that he is a bastard. The regent Alain de Bretagne is poisoned by supporters of Roger de Montgomery, a "richardist", viscount of Exmes (or Hiémois). Gilbert de Brionne, Guillaume's tutor is assassinated by Raoul de Gacé, son of Archbishop Robert le Danois (the clergyman in addition to being married is also a father) who proclaims himself tutor and seeks to claim the duchy for him. Turold, Guillaume's tutor, is also assassinated by an opponent of Guillaume. It was not until 1047 and after the battle of Val-ès-Dunes that Guillaume, aged 19, could legitimately pursue his claims and fully attain the status of duke.
An ambivalent character that Duke Robert, spoliator of Church property at the beginning of his reign, he then promulgated numerous endowments to religious institutions and founded or restored a certain number of abbeys and monasteries. In his foreign policy, he always shows himself a faithful ally of the King of France, his suzerain, but obtains territories, the French Vexin, as a price for this allegiance. He reaffirms his suzerainty over the Duchy of Brittany and asserts himself against Flanders. Within his duchy, he managed in less than three years to restore peace by using force against his main vassals and to establish ducal authority after the period of trouble caused by the premature death of Richard III in 1027. All his efforts to restore order come to nothing when he dies on a pilgrimage without the future of his dynasty being assured.
Bibliography
Sources
- Collection of the Acts of the Dukes of Normandy (911-1066), ed, M. Fauroux. Memoirs of the Society of Antiquaries of Normandy, t. XXXVI, Caen, 1961.
- JUMIEGES Guillaume de, History of Normandy, coll. Of the. Same. Rel. at the Hist. of France, trans. Francois Guizot, Paris, 1824.
- SAINT MAURE Benoit de, Chronicle of the Dukes of Normandy, Text established by C. Fahlin, Uppsala, 1951.
- VITAL Ordéric, History of Normandy, ed. François Guizot, trad. Louis Du Blois, 4 volumes, 1825-1827.
- WACE, Roman de Rou, ed. A. J. Holden, 3 volumes, Paris, 1970-1973.
Books and studies
- BOUARD, Michel de, "Robert the Magnificent", William the Conqueror, paris, paris, 1984, Fayard, p.77-101.
- FETTU Annie, The First Dukes of Normandy (911-1035), ed. OREP
- GAZEAU Véronique, Normannia monastica, vol.2, Publication du Crahm, Caen, 2007.
- MUSSET Lucien, "Birth of Normandy", Michel de Boüard (dir.), History of Normandy, Privat, Toulouse, 1970, p.75-129.
- NEVEUX François, Normandy from dukes to kings, 10th-12th century, ed. West-France University, Rennes, 1998.
Notes
1 Lucien Musset “Birth of Normandy”, Michel de Boüard, History of Normandy, Privat, Toulouse, 1970, p.111.
2 Dudon de Saint-Quentin describes under this name the children and grandchildren of Duke Richard I who were excluded from the ducal succession but who hold a number of the most powerful estates in Normandy, in particular the counties of Eu, Évreux and Mortain.
3 He is Count of Évreux.
4 Guillaume de Jumièges, Gesta Normannorum Ducum, ed. Guizot, 1826, book VI, p.139.
5 Saint-Quentin-de-Blavou located in the canton of Pervenchères, Ornes.
6 “Deeply touched by the pain he felt in his heart, he died immediately,” according to Guillaume de Jumièges.
7 On the subject of these restitutions, see the Acts of 1031-1034 and 1032-1035, in M. Fauroux, Recueil des Actes des ducs de Normandie (911-1066), Société des Antiquaires de Normandy, Caen, 1961.
8 Between 1031 or 1032 and 1035 according to Véronique Gazeau, in, Normannia monastica, vol.2, Publication du Crahm, Caen, 2007, p.107.
9 Michel De Boüard, William the Conqueror, Fayard, Paris, 1984, p.78-79.
10 Svein, King of Denmark conquered England in 1013 and became the only legitimate king in November 1016 after the death of Edmond Côte-de-Fer, the son of King Ethelred II. His son Knut "the Great" succeeds him and marries Emma, the widow of King Ethelred for the sake of dynastic continuity. Edward is therefore the son-in-law of Knut, from whom he is trying to regain power.
11 For information about this guardianship see, François Neveux, L'aventure des Normands, Tempus, Perrin, Paris, p.91-92.
12 As compensation for the loss of his crown, he offered him the Duchy of Burgundy.
13 His mother was Ogive de Luxembourg, daughter of Count Frederick of Luxembourg and Moselle, who died on February 21, 1030.
14 Wace says she was the daughter of a certain "Foubert" who works as a polinctor, i.e. "tanner" or "embalmer", a person who works leather .
15 Wace, Le Roman de Rou, v.7991-8060:“As soon as she slept / She had a vision / Shouted and started / He saw it / Sire, she said, I don't know / Why I dreamed / That a tree was sprouting from my body / Rising to the sky / And shaded / All of Normandy / And the sea / and the great land of England.
16 The Duke of Normandy Robert is wrongly associated with Robert "the Devil", a legendary character, because of this sentence he supposedly said. This anecdote is described by Wace who refers to an eyewitness to the scene in the Roman de Rou.
17 He would have offered his coat as a seat to his guests, inviting his men to imitate him.