The Final Phase

As guardian of the Flemish heiress, Philip Augustus controlled all decisions that pertained to Jeanne's future marriage, in accordance with feudal principles regulating the rights of wardship. In 1211 an initial suitor for Jeanne's hand presented himself in the person of Enguerrand de Coucy, who offered the king a relief of thirty thousand livres for the county of Flanders, later raised to fifty thousand livres.^[123] But opposition from the Flemish nobility defeated Enguerrand's candidacy. When the Dowager Countess Matilda, widow of Philippe of Alsace, proposed to match Enguerrand's bid of fifty thousand livres on behalf of her nephew Ferrand, son of King Sancho of Portugal, Philip Augustus accepted with alacrity, assuming no doubt that a ruler foreign to the county and free of prior political entanglements would prove most malleable in furthering the king's plan to strengthen Flemish ties to the crown. The marriage was celebrated in Paris on 22 January 1212, following which Ferrand was knighted by the king and performed homage, secured by pledges, for Flanders.

As eleven-year-old Jeanne and her twenty-four-year-old husband Ferrand prepared to make their return to Flanders, Prince Louis, probably with his father's connivance,^[124] hastened on before them and attacked Aire and Saint-Omer, seeking to recapture the northern region of Artois that Baldwin IX had secured for the count of Flanders by the Treaty of Péronne in 1200. After taking the towns into his own hands, Louis summoned the new count and countess to yield, and on 25 Feb-

ruary he compelled them to sign the Treaty of Pont-à-Vendin. By this treaty, Ferrand resigned the two cities to the prince and renounced all future rights to them. Among those who witnessed the various acts relative to the affair of Aire and Saint-Omer were Michel of Harnes, Guillaume of Béthune, Guillaume, castellan of Saint-Omer, and Roger IV, castellan of Lille, who at this time was designated one of the pledges named by Jeanne and Ferrand as warrant for the treaty. Roger was required to swear an oath to abandon his lord, the count of Flanders, should Ferrand violate the terms of the treaty or engage in warfare against the king of France.^[125]

Although a territorial victory for the royal house, Louis's brazen grab of Aire and Saint-Omer was a serious political blunder, for it revealed all too clearly to the new count the ruthless opportunism governing Capetian policy toward Flanders and served to alienate the count unnecessarily from the king and from Philip's partisans within the French party in Flanders. Moreover, it sowed seeds of discontent among the Flemish nobility, which John was quick to exploit, supported by vigorous maneuvering on the part of Renaud of Boulogne.

Within three months of the Treaty of Pont-à-Vendin, Renaud traveled to England (accompanied by his chaplain, the "Master Johannes" responsible for a Pseudo-Turpin translation), where, on 4 May 1212, he formally declared John to be his liege lord once again. Together with Hugh of Boves and Eustache le Moine, he signed an agreement of mutual assistance against Philip Augustus.^[126]

In June, John requested Renaud to return with Hugh of Bores to Flanders to mobilize the English party, commissioning the count to negotiate with Flemish lords in his name and to distribute favors as he deemed appropriate, whether in gifts of horses, money, or the more usual fief-rents. So successful was Renaud at this task that Dept calls him the "cheville ouvrière de la coalition," into which he brought his cousin Thibaud of Bar, as well as the Countess Matilda and a large number of the principal nobles of Flanders and Hainaut.^[127] Of the twenty-four Flemish nobles mentioned by name in English letters patent, eight were currently in Philip's pay—a good measure of the waning fortunes of the French party at the time.^[128]

Although Philip Augustus made some efforts to retain the loyalty of his Flemish vassals—while at Compiègne in June 1212, for example, he renewed the fief-rent of sixty livres, ten sous, on the péage of Péronne and Bapaume granted to Michel of Harnes^[129] —they pale in significance compared to John's openhanded extravagance. The English party in Flanders was completely rehabilitated, attaining its

point of maximum strength at this time. The new count sought to remain neutral, despite his initial anger over the seizure of Aire and Saint-Omer, but neutrality became increasingly difficult in the face of Philip Augustus's repeated interference in the affairs of Flanders, and unfolding events were to render it impossible.

The prospect of war emerged first in June 1212, when John summoned a feudal levy, clearly hoping to launch an attack on France to recover his lost territories. Philip Augustus responded to this act of provocation by seizing all English ships harbored in French ports, a move that John reciprocated in England. The French king, not content to defend his new acquisitions at home, on 8 April 1213 convoked an assembly of great barons at Soissons and called upon his son, Louis, to lead an expedition to conquer England. To this proposal the king received the unanimous assent of his barons, with the sole exception of Ferrand, who refused to perform his feudal service unless Louis returned Aire and Saint-Omer, which by right belonged in the tenure of the count of Flanders. When Philip offered instead to compensate the count for the two cities, Ferrand remained steadfast in his refusal and departed the court.^[130]

As Philip assembled his invasion fleet along the coast of Flanders, Ferrand maintained his distance, hoping to avoid a direct confrontation with the king by alleging that his liege homage did not require him to fight for his lord outside the kingdom of France. But Philip was adamant and in May demanded that Ferrand declare his intention to participate in the expedition against England. When Ferrand once again refused on the grounds that his obligations to the king had been nullified by the illegal seizure of Aire and Saint-Omer, the king dismissed him from the court, leaving Ferrand little choice but openly to seek aid from the king of England.^[131] John responded immediately to the count's overtures by sending a delegation of Flemish lords already gathered at the English court, led by Renaud of Boulogne, Robert VII of Béthune, Hugh of Boves, and William of Salisbury, to meet with the count and to proceed with ships, troops, and money to the Flemish coast.^[132]

Meanwhile the English king, then embroiled in a controversy with the pope over the election of Stephen Langton as archbishop of Canterbury, suddenly capitulated to papal demands that Stephen be allowed to enter his episcopal see and, with the same cunning that John frequently demonstrated in diplomatic matters, proposed to render England and Ireland in fief to the pope and to pay an annual tribute of one thousand pounds sterling to the papal curia. Within a week the

papal legate, Pandulf, arrived at Gravelines, where he met with Philip Augustus and demanded that the king abandon the attack on the pope's English vassal, threatening him with excommunication.^[133]

With his carefully laid plans thus thwarted, Philip Augustus threw himself at Flanders, ostensibly to punish the obdurate Ferrand for refusing to accompany him to England. In quick succession the king took Cassel, Ypres, and Bruges and laid siege to Ghent, meeting with little resistance except in the latter city. The beleaguered Ferrand was forced to flee to the island of Walcheren while Philip occupied large areas of Flanders. But the English fleet dispatched by John soon landed at Muidon, not far from Damme, where the king had moved the French invasion forces. On 30 May 1213 the Anglo-Flemish allies set fire to the French fleet as it lay at anchor at Damme, destroying any remnant of hope that Philip Augustus may have entertained of continuing with an invasion of England. His navy burned and Flanders reinforced by English troops, the king withdrew, evacuating his army from the county.

Ferrand followed behind Philip's retreating armies and retook possession of his county. Even the garrison that the French monarch had left behind at Lille, thinking to preserve a base of operations in Walloon Flanders, fell as the people opened the gates of the city to the count immediately after the king's departure.^[134] The count of Flanders now formally allied himself with the English coalition, in which he was joined by large numbers of Flemish barons appalled at the king's harsh treatment of their territory. The aging Dowager Countess Matilda ordered her vassals to support the count while the bishop of Cambrai, Jean of Béthune, uncle to Robert VII, fomented revolt against Philip Augustus in the southern regions of Flanders. Almost in its entirety, the Flemish nobility united behind Ferrand in opposition to the French king.

Between the destruction of the French fleet at Damme in May 1213 and the battle of Bouvines on 27 July 1214, Flanders was the principal theater of war. Although the English king, as usual, was liberal in his financial support of Flemish knights, the county of Flanders was subjected to extensive devastation. To make matters worse, the Flemish nobility seized the opportunity to prosecute ancient rivalries and avenge old injuries,^[135] thus adding local conflict to the wider war between the king and the count.

In July 1214, Philip celebrated his final victory over the Anglo-Flemish coalition. When the dust had settled after the battle of Bouvines, almost two-thirds of the nobility of Flanders and Hainaut had

been captured.^[136] Among those taken were 5 counts and 25 knights banneret, as well as more than 300 knights.^[137] Approximately 130 barons were imprisoned or placed under French custody, among them the most prominent leaders of the coalition: Count Ferrand and Renaud of Boulogne. Of the Flemish patrons of early vernacular histories, Renaud and William of Cayeux were imprisoned, while Robert of Béthune departed for England, where he served as constable in John's army during the French invasion under Louis VIII. Hugh of Saint-Pol had died earlier, and Roger IV of Lille was legally prohibited from participating in the struggle against the French, though, as mentioned above, he was forced to witness the burning of Lille. Only Michel of Harnes, a devoted French partisan, escaped the ruin visited upon his countrymen.

Flanders had suffered a crushing defeat and was forced to submit to royal authority. Countess Jeanne remained the titular ruler of the county, but her sphere of authority was severely restricted by the king, who imposed his partisans Jean de Nesles and Siger de Gand as her counselors. Jean de Nesles was also named bailli of Flanders and Hainaut, a position that enabled him to intervene at will in the affairs of the two counties in the king's interests.^[138] Towns and communes were required to guarantee their obedience by delivering hostages, and the nobility who had escaped imprisonment were obliged to promise, in writing, no longer to serve the count and to furnish pledges as warrant for their continued good behavior.^[139] Similar conditions were imposed on Flemish nobles at the time of their release from captivity.^[140]

The king, however, was determined to retain hold of the two chief protagonists of the coalition, Renaud and Ferrand. Renaud eventually took his own life in prison, but Ferrand did manage to secure his release from Louis VIII after Philip's death. According to the Treaty of Melun of 1226, which regulated the conditions of Ferrand's reinstatement as count of Flanders, the count and countess swore to serve the king loyally; to erect no new fortresses below the Escaut; and to compel, under pain of exile or confiscation, the knights and towns of Flanders to swear fidelity to the French monarch and to support him with aid and counsel if either count or countess violated the treaty.^[141] After decades of resistance to the French monarchy, the county of Flanders was subdued.

The extent of the damage suffered by Flanders for its resistance to royal authority can be glimpsed, if only in part, through the claims brought during the enquêtes of 1247. Although designed by Louis IX

primarily to correct the usurpations and illicit actions of royal baillis throughout the realm preparatory to his departure on Crusade,^[142] the enquêtes appear to have functioned at times as a forum for the adjudication of claims for war damages, particularly in the regions affected by the almost uninterrupted strife of the first half of the thirteenth century—that is, Flanders, Artois, Normandy, Poitou, and Languedoc. In the north, the enquêteurs made a circuit from Bapaume to Arras, where they entertained complaints from Lille, Douai, Lens, and Hesdin, and finally to Tournai. Those suing for war reparations or compensation for some other grievance were requested to present themselves at these towns with their dossiers, even though the hearings took the form of oral demands.^[143] Although past and current illegal exactions by baillis and other royal representatives appear alongside a host of complaints referring back to the time of Philip Augustus, in Arras, Lille, and Douai, for example, such claims make up only 18 percent of the total number of petitions.^[144] In Flanders and Artois, the vast majority of claims concerned the destruction of property and the seizure of goods, ships, merchandise, and hostages resulting from the war itself or from actions taken by royal agents responsible for provisioning troops and ships.

That both counties suffered disproportionately in comparison to other parts of the kingdom emerges from Sivéry's analysis of the relative level of financial distress indicated in the demands for reparations. In Normandy, where the war was intense but brief, the mean sum claimed by petitioners was only 56 livres tournois, whereas in the Tournaisis it climbed to 664 livres tournois, both figures being in turn far outstripped by the mean of 3,900 livres tournois reached in Artois and Flanders. The same disparity is revealed in the absolute sums requested from both regions, which in Artois and Flanders amounted to 161,941 livres tournois but in Normandy constituted only 62,353 livres tournois, a gap perhaps partially explained by the fact that in Flanders, Artois, and the Tournaisis only 16 percent of the claims were rural in origin, compared to 90 percent in Normandy, the Loire Valley, and western France generally.^[145]

Among the largest amounts sought were those resulting from Philip Augustus's habit of taking hostages in Artesian and Flemish cities to enforce their loyalty and then demanding huge ransoms in return for their freedom. At the time of Jeanne's marriage to Ferrand in 1212, for example, Douai, like other Flemish cities, swore fidelity to the king and promised to support him in the event that the count and countess engaged in war against the throne. Unlike Lille, Douai was

faithful to its oath and remained loyal to the Capetian king. Yet despite its blameless conduct during the hostilities, when Philip Augustus returned to the city after having burned and destroyed Lille for its "perfidy," he selected twenty hostages from the notables of Douai, imprisoning them for two years at Etampes. After Bouvines, the citizens of Douai were compelled to pay the king sixty thousand livres parisis and to remit twenty additional young men in exchange for the release of the original hostages, the second group in its turn subject to a fee of two thousand livres as the price for their liberty. In 1247, the inhabitants of Douai appeared before the royal enquêteurs to claim damages and expenses incurred in the "matter" of the hostages, delicately refraining, however, from stipulating a fixed sum.^[146]

Individuals were equally victims of the king's arbitrary actions. In 1198, Philip Augustus arrived in Hesdin and arrested the mayor, Hugh le Roux, whom he imprisoned without cause, freeing him only in return for a ransom of eight thousand livres parisis. Similarly, Henri Troplès, a burgher of Lille, had been seized sometime during the struggles between the king and Philippe of Alsace and secured his release by a payment of a thousand livres parisis. Three decades later, when the hapless Troplès appeared before the royal officials to claim damages, he was still ignorant of the reason for his confinement.^[147]

Such sums were trifling in comparison to those demanded, often without any more discernible cause, from the rich burghers of Arras, to whose capacity to pay the king apparently was not insensible. In one extraordinary case, royal agents had extorted as much as 12,500 livres tournois in the form of ransom from a burgher of Arras, a figure greatly exceeding the usual 1,000 livres tournois required of relatively prosperous lords.^[148] The scale of this demand comes into high relief when one remembers that the king's ordinary revenue at this time stood somewhere around 195,000 livres parisis, of which the ransom claimed from this single bourgeois of Arras represents approximately 6.5 percent. Indeed, overall in ransoms, seizures of goods, and fines, Philip Augustus had amassed from the citizens of Arras, Lille, Douai, Tournai, Hesdin, and Bapaume 113,000 livres tournois, or 40 percent of his ordinary annual income.^[149]

Inhabitants of port cities likewise suffered at the hands of the king and his representatives, especially armateurs and merchants who dealt in provisions needed by the French fleets—not only those anchored at Damme in 1213, but those at Gravelines in 1216 as well, as Prince Louis prepared to invade England in response to the appeal of

the English barons in revolt against King John. Claims for compensation for ships, arms, wheat, wine, cloth, leather, and other commodities confiscated on royal orders are sprinkled throughout the records of the enquêtes , especially those held at Tournai, a major port city of the Scaldian basin. These claims are particularly noteworthy in light of Louis's proclamation in Artois that merchants who were willing to furnish provisions for his army would receive twice the amount of their investment if their ships were lost as a result of English violence—a promise that apparently did not cover losses experienced as a result of French expropriations.^[150]

Also appearing in relatively high numbers at the enquêtes of Tournai were demands for compensation on the part of knights and lords whose lands had been wasted and castles burned by Philip Augustus as he rampaged through the countryside. Another class of petitioners included men who, having served in the king's army in 1214 and in that of Prince Louis during the English expedition in 1216, came forward to request the frais de service militaire still in arrears. So abundant were the complaints at Tournai that the royal enquêteurs noted with some surprise the large number of claimants and extensive sums involved.^[151] Equally impressive were complaints concerning the destruction of seigneurial lands, both lay and ecclesiastical. Demands for recompense from the king for destroyed property were often made by heirs, whose legacies had been damaged by the actions of royal officials and who now came forward to request the king's liquidation of past injustices.^[152]

That baronial discontent over past and present injuries at the hands of royal officials continued to smolder in Flanders for decades after the battle of Bouvines is revealed not only in the complaints presented at the enquêtes of 1247 but also by the curious episode of the "False Baldwin," which inflamed the county and unleashed social revolt and civil war in 1225. In that year a man (later identified as one Bertrand de Rains) emerged from a forest not far from Valenciennes where he had been living for some time as a hermit. He claimed to be Baldwin IX, count of Flanders and Hainaut, who had been captured and presumed killed by the Bulgars at the beginning of the century. The pseudo-count instantly became a rallying point for Flemish malcontents. Although ultimately the revolt that broke out over the pretender engulfed all levels of Flemish society, the nobility evidently provided its initial impulse, no doubt hoping to use the lone, ragged figure as a vehicle of political opposition to Countess Jeanne and the

royal baillis who effectively controlled the affairs of Flanders. It was they who "discovered" the hermit and introduced him to the urban population, for whom he proved to have a strangely powerful appeal.^[153]

Flanders had just survived a severe winter that had created terrible conditions of famine, and the urban population, hardest hit by the scarcity of foodstuffs, received the hermit-count as a savior, symbol of the years of deprivation and despoliation that they, too, had suffered.^[154] Valenciennes and Lille opened the gates of their cities to him, and within weeks the county was astir as urban workers, animated by the hope of a new leader who would redeem the injustices of the past, agitated the populace. The nobles at first encouraged popular action as a means of weakening comital authority in the belief that they could retain control of events. Even Henry III entered the political fray, recognizing its potential for embarrassing his enemy, Louis VIII, and for undermining the French king's support of Jeanne. On 11 April 1225, the king of England wrote to the False Baldwin, recalling the ancient alliance that had united their ancestors, inviting him to enter into a pact of mutual assistance, and assuring the "count" of his readiness to come to his aid with a strong "helping hand" (manum auxiliarem ).^[155]

Inevitably, the sedition of 1225 provoked intervention by the French king. Louis VIII entered Flanders with troops and systematically set about quelling the rebellion of townspeople and nobility. The misguided Bertrand de Rains was unmasked and put to flight, and later imprisoned and executed at Lille.^[156] The result of the revolt was the complete submission of Flanders to the French crown. Since Bouvines, Jeanne had been counseled and supervised by royal baillis but had maintained a semblance of comital authority and autonomy. Louis's campaign in Flanders in 1225 forced her to acknowledge her total dependence on the French king, thus destroying even the illusion of an independent Flanders.

Although with greater reluctance, the nobility also recognized the impossibility of opposing the authority of the French sovereign and submitted to royal rule, abandoning its residual ties to the English party and realigning on the side of royal partisans.^[157] The failure of the rebellion vindicated the king's triumph at Bouvines. As in 1214, it spelled the end of an autonomous Flemish nobility, who no longer possessed even the possibility of recourse to an English alliance as a protection against Capetian domination. The entire shabby episode of the False Baldwin provides an ironic footnote to the decline in Flemish

fortunes from the days of the genuine Baldwin IX, when Flanders had still commanded sufficient resources and prestige to pursue a policy of independence from the Capetian monarchy. It disclosed in equal measure the decisive nature of the king's victory at Bouvines and the impotence of the Flemish nobility in the face of royal authority.

Such were the varieties of social and political change experienced by the northern aristocracy within the brief compass of a few decades. Intimately involved in every phase of these transformations—indeed, the most active leaders in the political struggle—was the first generation of patrons of vernacular historiography: Yolande and Hugh of Saint-Pol, Robert of Béthune, Renaud of Boulogne, Michel III of Harnes, and Roger IV of Lille. Except for Renaud of Dammartin, who entered the Flemish sphere by virtue of his marriage to Ida of Boulogne, all belonged to ancient lineages whose origins in Flanders can be traced back at least to the eleventh century.

The original three patrons of vernacular historical texts—Hugh of Saint-Pol, Renaud of Boulogne, and Michel of Harnes—all held lands and tenures in or dependent on the contested region of Artois, as a result of which they were compelled by 1201 to acknowledge royal overlordship. This was also true of the remaining sponsors of vernacular historiography in the years after Bouvines and the collapse of the French expedition to England in 1216, during which Robert of Béthune was enlisted as a constable in the English army. The dates of the earliest translations of the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle cohere remarkably with the troubled political history of Flanders. Nicolas of Senlis produced his version for Yolande and Hugh of Saint-Pol in 1202; the "Johannes" Turpin was transcribed for Renaud of Boulogne in 1206 and again for Michel of Harnes in 1206-1207; while at approximately the same date William of Cayeux, an Anglo-Flemish partisan from Ponthieu, solicited his copy. The two remaining early versions stem from the identical region of Artois, Flanders, and Hainaut and appear in the years immediately succeeding Bouvines, 1218 and circa 1220-1230—the same period that witnessed the creation of the two histories by the anonymous Artesian minstrel in the employ of Robert of Bé thune. Simultaneously, between 1208 and 1213, Roger IV, castellan of Lille, commissioned the Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César .

These years, especially those around 1206-1213, mark the moment when the French party formed in Flanders and the Flemish aristocracy was first made to submit to royal authority during the regency of the

weak Philippe de Namur. By 1225, with the crushing of the revolt fomented over the appearance of the False Baldwin, the autonomy of the Flemish aristocracy had been severely curtailed. An era of aristocratic rule in Flemish society had come to a close. Flanders had lost its bid to establish a polity capable of rivaling the French monarchy in power and prestige.

When seen against the events of Philip Augustus's reign, the rise of vernacular historiography at the courts of the Franco-Flemish aristocracy at the beginning of the thirteenth century appears to have resulted from an ideological initiative on the part of Flemish aristocrats whose social dominance and political independence were being contested by the growth of royal power. But the writing of history in Old French prose constituted more than a search for a usable past. It also represented a profound shift in the discursive practices of the French nobility. The distinguishing feature of the early vernacular chronicle lies in its militant insistence on prose as the necessary language of history and its critique of the mendacious tendencies of verse historiography, hitherto the sole language of lay history. If, as this book will attempt to demonstrate, the French aristocracy turned to history as a form of ethical reassurance and political legitimation at a moment of social and political crisis, it seems logical to conclude that the emergence of prose was, as well, functionally related to the transformations occurring within aristocratic society. Political failure and social decline were inscribed in a novel historiographical discourse, which staked its claim to authority on its employment of prose.

The beginning point of this inquiry, therefore, must be the question of the emergence of vernacular prose, for it was in the controversy over the relative truth-value of poetry and prose that vernacular historiography demarcated its own discourse from the aristocratic literary genres and practices that had preceded it, and argued for the truth of the image of the past that it proffered. The emergence of vernacular historiography opens with an intense debate on the truth of history and the authoritative nature of the claims embedded in a past conveyed in the lucid medium of prose. It is, therefore, the problem of prose as presented in the first translations of the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle to which we must now turn.