English rule in Gascony, 1199-1259

Prefatory Note

In its original form this study was presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. It has since been considerably extended and much recast, owing to the appearance of additional volumes in the Rolls series.

My thanks are due to Professor E. W. Dow and Professor A. L. Cross of the University of Michigan for much invaluable assistance.

Frank B. Marsh Austin, Texas

Chapter I

Death of Richard. Disputed succession. Attitude of the Gascon towns and policy of John. Claims of Castile. Attack of Philip on Poitou and of Alfonso on Gascony. Attitude of the towns. Privileges and concessions granted by John. ....... i

CHAPTER n

THE BEGINNING OE THE REIGN OF HENRY III, 1216-1220

Difficulties of the English government after the death of John. First measures of the regency. Bankruptcy of the government. Dangers in Gascony. Weakness of the seneschal. Anarchy in Gascony and Poitou. Marriage of Isabella. Quarrel with Hugh of La Marche. Attempts of towns and church to maintain peace. Position of towns as supporters of the royal power. Concessions to them. Danger in France , . . . .18

CHAPTER HI

THE ATTACK OF LOUIS VIII, 1221-1227

Continued Anarchy in Gascony and Poitou. Accession of Louis VIII. He renews the war. Conquest of Poitou. Attitude of the towns. Concessions to the towns. Attack on Gascony. Bordeaux checks the French advance. Castles intrusted to the towns. Expedition of Richard of Cornwall. Recovery of Gascony. Failure in Poitou. Part played by the towns in the campaigns. . . . -35 vi ENGLISH RULE IN GASCONY

CHAPTER IV

GASCONY IN 1227-1230 AND HENRY'S FIRST EXPEDITION AGAINST POITOU

Administration of Henry de Trubleville. His relations with the nobles and the towns. Parties in the towns, their origin and character. Expedition of Henry against Poitou, in 1230. Support given by the towns, military and financial. , 56

CHAPTER V

Condition of the province. Vivona as seneschal. Difficulties of his position. Colombines in power at Bordeaux. Trubleville restored as seneschal. Collision with the Colombines at Bordeaux. Soler party restored to power there. Increased tranquillity. Dependence of the government on the townspeople in time of peace. ... 70

CHAPTER VI

HENRY'S iSECOND EXPEDITION AGAINST POITOU, 1242

Henry renews the war with France. Defeat at Taillebourg. Financial and military aid given by the towns during the campaign. Concessions to the townspeople. Loans of the Colombines to the king. They regain power in Bordeaux. Henry remains in Gascony. Continued loans by townspeople. .86

CHAPTER VII

MUNICIPAL CHANGES AT DAX AND BAYONNE, 1243

Henry makes a tour of the south. Measures at Bayonne. Names the hundred peers. Reasons for this step. Reorganizes the commune at Dax. Character and causes of this measure. .... 103

CHAPTER VIII

THE DICTATORSHIP OF SIMON DE MONTFORT, 1248-1254

Continued disorder in Gascony, Montfort despatched as dictator. Harsh conduct toward the nobles. Policy toward the towns. Character of the municipal parties. Montfort supports popular party. Riot at Bordeaux. Proscription of the Solers. Policy in other towns. Revolts of nobles and proscribed burghers. Complaints to Henry. Henry abandons Montfort. Renewed pretensions of Castile. Anarchy in Gascony following Montfort's removal. . . . . .HI

CONTENTS vii

CHAPTER IX THE ALFONIST REVOLT, 1254-1255

Alfonso claims Gascony. Peril to the English rule. Revolt of the Gascons. Attitude of the towns. Successful campaign of Henry. Support given him by the towns. Privileges to citizens. Treaty with Alfonso. Restores peace in Bordeaux and other towns. Treaty with France. . . . . ...... 136

Conclusion 152

List of Mayors of Bordeaux 157

INTRODUCTION

Ths latter part of the twelfth century witnessed the rise of the house of Anjou to a position of great outward splendor and widely extended dominion. By a series of fortunate marriages, inheritances and conquests Henry II became the ruler not only of England but of a large part of France. During his lifetime and that of his son Richard, this empire resisted all the efforts of the Capetians for its destruction. In the reign of John, however, it gave way. Gaining a pretext under the feudal law, Philip Augustus declared John to have forfeited all his French fiefs and forthwith set about the task of dispossessing him of them. In no long time John had been driven out of all his northern possessions ; but in the south he was successful in resisting the French monarch's advance. Neither side had, therefore, been entirely successful. The English king had lost the north and the French king had not gained the south. For more than fifty years following the death of John each side made vain attempts to realize its entire ambition, yet the situation remained substantially the same ; the English king could not regain the northern fiefs, nor could the French expel the English from the south. At length in 1259 Louis IX accepted these results and signed a treaty recognizing the continued sovereignty of the English king in Gascony.

At first sight it might seem that the territories which the Plantagenets retained were those on which they had the weakest hold. Normandy had been united with the English crown much

X BNGLISH RULE IN GASCONY

longer than Gascony; the Norman and the English baronage had been closely allied since the days of the Conqueror; and the control of the central government had been much better organized and firmer in the north than in the south. Yet Normandy was conquered by the French, who nevertheless failed in repeated attempts to win Gascony.

The explanations of this fact which have been offered do not seem wholly satisfactory. It is true that the people of the south felt little sympathy for those of the north, and that a wide difference in temperament, speech, manners and culture existed between them. To the Gascon the Norman and Parisian seemed aliens and foreigners ; but was not this true in a greater degree of the Englishman ? The personal influence of John's mother Eleanor certainly counted for much, representing as she did the old line of the dukes of Aquitaine, but Henry III was equally successful in maintaining his authority against the French and this at a time when Eleanor was but a memory. It has been suggested that the restless and turbulent Gascon lords preferred the distant and feeble king of England to the king of France, powerful and near at hand, Gascony had however a third claimant in the king of Castile, who though only across the Pyrenees was too much occupied in Spain to be likely to govern strongly in any part of France. Why should he not have been considered an equally convenient overlord? So indeed he was by at least a large number of the Gascon nobles, who supported an attempt to enforce his claims. It has likewise been pointed out that there were strong commercial ties binding the Gascon towns to England. Certain it is that Gascon wine found a ready market across the channel and the desire to retain that market would tend strongly to keep the citizens of Bordeaux and Bayonne loyal to the English crown. Yet, after all, in what way and to what degree did such ties exist ? How much and what sort of a role did the towns have in maintaining English rule in Gascony?

INTRODUCTION xi

It is especially to this last side of the problem that the following study is devoted. The aim here then is to trace in detail the rule of the English government in southwestern France so far as it affected or dealt with the townspeople, and to see what was their attitude toward it, and what part they played in its maintenance. The feudal nobility will be dealt with only incidentally. In point of time that period only will be treated when the continuance of English authority was most seriously in question. This will give as limits the years 1199 and 1259. The death of Richard, in the former, marks the disruption of the Angevin empire. From the time of John's accession Gascony was menaced on the one side by France and on the other by Castile. Throughout the earlier part of Henry's reign the English supremacy was almost continually threatened. It was not until the treaty with Alfonso X in 1254 had removed him from the contest, and the treaty with Louis IX in 1259 had settled the French claims that the English could be said to have enjoyed an authority undisputed by the neighboring monarchs.^

^ In the following study the term Gascony 'has been somewhat loosely; used to designate the possessions of the English king in southern France. In strictness these possessions consisted, after the losses of John, of the duchy of Gascony proper and certain portions of Poitou.

CHAPTER I

Death of Richard. Disputed succession. Attitude of the Gascon towns and policy of John. Claims of Castile. Attack of Philip on Poitou and of Alfonso on Gascony. Attitude of the towns. Privileges and concessions granted by John.

The death of Richard shook the ill-compacted Angevin empire to its foundations. Not only did it place upon the throne one unable to hold his own in the perpetual struggle with Philip Augustus, but it raised immediately a question of succession. Richard being dead, should the crown pass to John or to Arthur ? This was the problem which pressed for solution. Richard, himself, had on his deathbed recognized John as his successor,^ and this seems to have secured him the support of the ruling officials.^ John's claims were also supported by his mother Eleanor, whose rights in Aquitaine none could dispute. So England obeyed the royal officers and Aquitaine followed the duchess and accepted John without serious question ; but Anjou, Maine, Touraine and Brittany declared for Arthur, who had, moreover, the powerful support of John's ever-watchful antagonist Philip 11. John, who was in Brittany at the time of Richard's death, hastened north to secure Normandy and England, leaving his mother to hold the south for him. In the midst of this crisis the obvious policy, for both John and his mother, was to be

^Ramsay, Angevin Empire, 365. 'Ibid., 378.

conciliatory, to seek to win as much support as possible in the regions which John sought to rule.

In Gascony the reigns of Henry II and Richard had, apparently, seen a considerable development in the prosperity and power of the towns. To Henry, indeed, has been attributed the grant of a charter to the commune of Bordeaux in 1173. Though this is almost certainly a mistake,^ there is little doubt that a commune developed there during his reign, apparently without opposition ; for it was certainly in existence by the death of Richard. The same thing may also be said of Bayonne, which not only developed a communal organization but secured various commercial privileges. These go back to the time of William IX, last independent Duke of Aquitaine, but were confirmed and extended by Richard.* At Dax Richard had suppressed the authority of the viscount and substituted a government of a capdel and twenty justiciars.^ He also granted to the citizens freedom from all dues {de omnimoda consuetudine) throughout Poitou, Aquitaine and Gascony,® a privilege which would seem to be merely a repetition of one accorded to Bayonne. Thus, by the time of John's accession the towns had made sufficient progress to be a factor of importance among the political forces with which the king had to reckon.

* The existence of this charter rests wholly on a statement of de Lurbe in his Chronique hourdeloise, 15. It has been fully shown, however, tihat here de Lurbe has attributed a charter of Henry III to Henry II : see Sansas, Memoires siir les Origines municipales de Bordeaux (published in the Actes de VAcademie de Bordeaux, 23® Annee), and Rabanis, Administration municipale et institutions judiciares de Bordeaux pendant le moyen age, in the Revue Historique de Droit Frangais et Stranger, VII (1861).

*See Giry, £tablissements de Rouen, I, 103-5. Balasque has published Richard's charters in his Etudes sur Bayonne.

" Abbadie, Le Livre noir de Dax, xxiii ; Duforcet, in tihe Bull, de la soc. Borda, I, 456. Duforcet finds a mayor at Dax with the title of capdel as early as 1189 (Bull, de la soc. Borda, I, 458).

* Le Livre noir, 178. The document occurs in a vidimus of 1294.

The feudal nobles of the south were always a turbulent and lawless body and both Henry II and Richard had been forced to fight vigorously against them. It was, perhaps, in the midst of these struggles that the communes had been founded, and possibly the kings had favored them with the deliberate aim of creating some counterpoise to the feudality, lay or ecclesiastical. Though the nobles showed little disposition to favor the cause of Arthur, we can scarcely suppose them wholly passive spectators, especially when, it would seem, the church set them an example of lawlessness. At a later date, at any rate, serious charges relating to this time were brought against the archbishop of Bordeaux, and in 1204 Innocent III ordered an investigation of the accusation that on the death of Richard this eminent churchman had seized the fortified places, prevented the inhabitants from leaving, and committed many grievous crimes.'^ These charges would seem^ to have considerable justification, and we may well believe that the example of an archbishop who allied himself with the mercenary troops and allowed them to ransom the clergy was but too well imitated by the lay nobility. In any case, it was not a favorable moment for an energetic policy toward the nobles, who do not seem to have openly questioned Eleanor's authority or John's succession. The wisest course must have seemed to rest content with that for the moment and to attempt to secure a more stable support in the rising municipalities.

The towns, apparently, saw their opportunity for the crisis was fruitful of concessions. At La Rochelle all the liberties of the commune were confirmed.® Niort, St. Jean-d'Angely and Oleron received communal charters, some of them, perhaps, for the first time.^'*

' Calendar of Papal Registers : Papal Letters, 1, 16. *From the picture of the archbishop's condiuct, drawn by Richard, Histoire des Comtes de Poitou, II, 446.

At Saintes the commune was not only confirmed but the fitablissements of Rouen, then in force at La Rochelle, were extended to it.^^ In Gascony, also, extensive favors were granted. Thus one of the first acts of Eleanor was to issue a charter suppressing certain duties levied by Richard at Bordeaux.^^ This concession to the merchants — for so we must regard it — John confirmed from England.^^ On the same day he also confirmed another grant of Eleanor's by which she ^ had declared that a mint should be maintained at Bordeaux." In addition to such concessions to the commune John conferred upon Elias Viger, a prominent citizen of Bordeaux, a placia in that city, adjoining one which king Richard had given to his two brothers. Likewise the king took the burgher and his goods under the royal protection and gave him commercial privileges in Poitou.^^ At St. fimilion the citizens received a charter confirming their commune with all its rights and hberties.^^ At Dax, if we may trust the chronicler, John confirmed all privileges.^^ At Bayonne he granted a revenue of 50 pounds a year to Vitalus de Viele, to be paid from dues on whales.^^ Such favors, it would seem, helped John through the crisis over the Angevin inheritance. His success was 'for the moment complete, Gascony was quiet, passively loyal at least. Normandy and England recognized him without serious opposition ; after some desultor} fighting even the feifs that had declared for Arthur submitted, and Philip, accepting the failure of his designs, consented to a treaty which recognized John as heir to all the territories of Richard.

^' Livre des coutumes, 437.

^^ Rotuli Chariarum, 4b.

" Ibid.

" Guadet, St. Smilion, 212. The charter is contained in a Vidimus of 1340. -^ " Compaigne, Chronique de la ville de Dax, 11.

" Balasque, 6tudes, I, 450. Delpit, Notice, 125, note i.

John's difficulties, however, were by no means at an end. Philip had recognized him for the moment but was far from having abandoned projects of expansion at his expense. There is no need here to trace in detail the impolitic actions by which John drove the Poitevin lords to appeal to Philip, nor the judicial proceedings by which, in 1202, Philip declared John's feifs on the continent forfeited to the French crown. As a result of these developments John was assailed on two sides at once, by Philip in the north and by Castile in the south. The trouble with France was simply a new phase of the old rivalry between the Capetians and the Plantagenets. That with Castile sprang from one of the many royal intermarriages. Alfonse VIII of that country had married Eleanor, a sister of John, and now, doubtless emboldened by John's entanglement with France, advanced a claim to Gascony, which he declared had been promised him by Henry II as a dowry.^^ John not unnaturally refused to concede any such claim, and, to counterbalance Alfonso's intrigue in the south, he concluded a treaty with Navarre, and attempted to injure his rival by commanding the citizens of Bayonne to abstain from all business dealings with the Castilians.^" Thus in 1202 John had before him the task of defending himself at the same time in both the north and the south, against both Alfonso of Castile and Philip of France.

Of the two enemies the most formidable and successful was Philip, who by a vigorous and rapid campaign stripped John of his northern territories. To the victorious advance of the French king John offered little opposition; his forces were soon expelled from Anjou, Maine and Normandy. The weakness of the defense may have been due in part to John's insecure position in Gascony. That many of the southern nobles favored Alfonso was shortly to be made plainly evident, and John may very well have had a perception

" Abbadie, Livre noir, xxiv. ^"Ryimer, Poedera, I, 127.

6 ENGLISH RULB IN GASCONY

of the fact. But although he did not take the field against his foes with energy, he showered concessions on the towns. Evidently the less he could depend upon the nobles the more necessary it became to gain the burghers. To the citizens of Dax he granted, with praises for their loyalty, the right to carry on commerce in his dominions freely and without hindrance upon the payment of the customary dues.^^ In Bordeaux John gave his royal protection to the person and merchandise of Elias Viger, and added to this the special privilege of carrying 300 tonelli of wine to any part of his dominion, by land or by sea, free from all duties saving only the liberties of London. ^^ That the Vigers were an influential family at Bordeaux there can be no doubt, and the concessions to Elias look very like an attempt to keep the town loyal by conciliating prominent citizens, doubtless those powerful in the commune. Apparently following this same policy, John granted favors to another influential family. On June 23 he gave to William Raymond Colom and his brother Amaneus the right, upon the payment of the proper dues, to travel and transact business throughout his dominion. Further than this he conceded to William the right to carry one shipload of wine or salt to any part of his territories free from all royal duties, a privilege which was to hold good for four years,^^ It was doubtless an extension of the same policy to other towns that led John to grant letters of protection to Marcus Sturmin,^* merchant of St. ;fimilion, as well as to Raymond

""■Rot. litt. pat., sb.

'^^ Rot. chartarum, 112 b.

'^ Rot. litt. pat., 31. The family name of the brothers is not given, in the document; they are designated simply as William Raymond and Amaneus his brother. Since, however, we know that in Bordeaux there was a William Raj'mond Colom who had a brother Amaneus and that they were wine merchants, the identification is not difficult. The Coloms were, as we shall abundantly see, a very powerful and wealthy family and destined to play a great part in the affairs of Bordeaux (see Close Rolls, 1227-1231, p. 142).

"^Rot. litt. pat., 25.

JOHN AND THB TOWNS 7

de Pins and his son Senebrunnus, who appear to have been merchants of La Reole.^^

By these concessions John seemed striving to win the towns to his support. In the next year their loyalty was put to a decided test. Philip, having conquered Normandy, now turned southward and formed a combination with Alfonso of Castile.^® The Spaniard was to seize Gascony while Philip took Poitou.

The French king's part of the bargain was loyally fulfilled. Poitou was easily and swiftly taken. Some even of John's newly chartered communes, such as St. Jean-d'Angely, turned against him at the critical moment and went over to Philip.^'^ The nobles, or at least some of the more important of them, as the viscount of Thouars, were won over to the French cause.^® In spite of the favorable reception which Philip received, he did not advance beyond Poitou, perhaps because of his engagements with Alfonso, perhaps because in Gascony the archbishop of Bordeaux, having gathered a consid-l erable force, stood loyal to England.^''

If John did little in the field to oppose his rival, be continued his favors to Elias Viger, conferring on him an estate at Beggles which Richard had given to a man named Chitre. The ambitious burgher, wrongly representing Chitre as dead, induced the king to transfer the estate to him as a hereditary possession, for which he was to pay a sore-hawk annually.^** Nor did John interfere when the citizens of Bayonne negotiated a commercial treaty with Sancho of Navarre by which they secured full right to trade in that

"^ Balasque, Etudes, I, 320-2. Richard, Histoire des comtes de Poitou, .

^' Giry, Sitah., I, 294.

^ Richard, Histoire, II, 452.

^ Rot, chartarum, 135.

kingdom.^^ Perhaps he was willing enough to see the city bound by close commercial ties to his ally against Castile.

The following year, 1205, might seem a crisis in the fate of John's continental possessions. Philip reduced all of Poitou except Niort and La Rochelle^- and Alfonso invaded Gascony. The chief support of the English cause was, as has been indicated, the archbishop of Bordeaux, Helie de Malmort. Acting for the king, he had assembled troops in the south and established himself firmly at Bordeaux. In June of 1204 he had gone to England to arrange measures of defense with the king and John had granted him a subsidy of 28,000 marks of silver. With this support his brother, who was in actual command of the troops, continued to augment his force of mercenaries while the archbishop himself remained in England as a hostage. '^^ Yet while thus endeavoring to strengthen his army John did not abandon his policy of granting favors to the townspeople, and accorded privileges to Oleron aqd La Rochelle, perhaps, as a means of holding them against the French.^*

The chief danger for the moment came from the side of Castile. Alfonso's attempt on Gascony had been well prepared and a charter of October 25, 1204, affords us a glimpse of the intrigues he was. carrying on behind the scenes. The charter in question was drawn up at San Sebastian and is dated in Spanish style. It contains a gift of certain serfs to the bishop of Dax and is witnessed by the bishop of Bayonne, the count of Armagnac, the viscounts of Beam, Tartas, and Orthez."^ This gift, thus witnessed in Spain, would indicate that the leading seigneurs of the south, ecclesiastical as well as

" Giry, &tah., Pieces, II, -76.

'^Norgate, lohn Lackland, 113 and also note 6.

''Richard, Histoire, II, 445-48. However, Davis, England under Normans and Angevins, 345, regards the amount (given by Coggeshall) as preposterous.

'' Balasque, Etudes, I, 321.

secular, were prepared tO' support Alfonso. He, therefore, had little to fear from them when, in 1205, he crossed the border.

Once in Gascony the Spaniard turned his attention first to Bayonne. The bishop favored him ; but the burghers closed the gates of their city and remained loyal to the English king. Turning aside from Bayonne, Alfonso found a welcome in Beam and thence proceeded north in triumph till he reached La Reole, where he again found the city true to John. Learning that Bordeaux would take the same attitude, he advanced no farther, but after some delay, recrossed the Pyrenees, having ranged under him — if we may trust \ Balasque's version of a Spanish chronicler — all Gascony except ^ Bordeaux, La Reole and Bayonne.

The Spanish success, however, was as transitory as it was easy. The next year (1206) John took the field in person with such forces as he could muster,^^ and attempted to regain the ground that had been lost. It was soon evident that Alfonso's conquest had no solid foundation. The chief communes were loyal to John and some of the nobles now rallied to his cause.^'^ Of the rest even those who had welcomed the Spaniard were little disposed to fight for him, and he himself seems to have done little to support his cause. John was therefore able to crush the opposition in Gascony, to regain some of the lost ground, and to conclude with Philip a truce leaving what he had thus retaken in his hands. ^^

In this struggle the attitude of the towns was clearly of great importance tO' John. Had they yielded to the Spaniard any attempt at reconquest would have been enormously more difficult. While they remained loyal not only were they a center round which John's partisans could rally but they rendered it an easy matter to land troops at any time within the province. The conduct of

^''Norgate, John Lackland, 114.

lo BNGLISH RULE IN GASCON Y

the king showed that he was well aware of their importance and meant to keep them loyal to himself if possible. Threatened by Prance and Spain at once he granted new concessions. One might almost trace the progress of the invaders by the letters patent of John. It was, indeed, no more than a continuation of the policy he had followed from the beginning of his reign.

Among the concessions granted during the pressure of the double peril we may note the following. At Bayonne he issued letters patent taking the citizens imder his royal protection and granting them the right to come and go as they would in his dominions and to transact business anywhere upon the payment of the proper dues.^^ He further took the persons and property of two Bayonnese merchants*" under his special protection, and paid certain debts to the sailors of that town.*^ At Bordeaux he granted more extensive privileges. First he accorded to his faithful and well beloved citizens {dilectis et Melibus nostris probis hominibus nostris, etc.) exemption from all royal dues for their merchandise both at Bordeaux itself and throughout the region of the Gironde.*^ He also, at the request of the citizens, made or sanctioned certain changes in the laws governing the inheritance of property, and furthermore accorded them the right to receive strangers into the commune after they had resided in the town for one month. This last privilege he expressly ■declared was to be granted for such time as the citizens should remain loyal. At La Reole he assisted certain merchants, possibly influential ones, to collect a debt from the merchants of Dieppe by ■seizing the property of the latter in his dominions. No sooner was jhis truce with France concluded than he extended to the Reolese the

'"■Rot. lift, claus., I, 48b. *^ Rot. chart arum, i4Sb.

JOHN AND THE TOWNS ii

same commercial privileges that were already enjoyed by the Bordelais.^^

The success which attended this policy of conciliating the towns we have already seen. But here an obvious query suggests itself. If favors alone were necessary why was it that John could not win the support of all the towns ? Why could he not hold Poitou as well as Gascony? And going further we might ask, why might not Alfonso win the towns as easily as John ? Surely the mere granting of favors could by itself never furnish the basis for an enduring power. Gratitude seldom seems to have counted for much in the politics of Gascony. Not only must the towns be in a position to assert themselves against the neighboring nobles but the favors must lie in the direction of the interests of the towns themselves. How little favors by themselves could accomplish is well illustrated by the conduct of St. Jean-d'Angely. This town, after receiving favors from John, deserted to Philip upon his promising to confirm its liberties. For John's policy to succeed the towns must have some interests which bound them to their protector. In the case of the Gascon towns such ties existed, as a glance at the commercial geography of the province will show.

Commercially the great artery of Gascony was the Garonne river. At its mouth, commanding and concentrating the commerce of its upper reaches, stood Bordeaux, Above, St. Macaire, Langon, La Reole and Bazas sent their trade down the river through the great central port of the duchy. To the north on the Dordogne stood St. fimilion, commercially less dependent upon Bordeaux. Of course such towns as La Reole were so situated that their trade could easily flow toward northern France on the one hand, and toward Toulouse on the other. This may in part explain the uncertain loyalty of some of them to the English cause. But England, in any case, offered a