The Anonymous of Béthune

As far as can be discerned from the language and content of his histories, it would appear that the Anonymous of Béthune was of Artesian extraction and had entered the service of Robert VII of Béthune sometime in the 1180s, in all likelihood in the capacity of ménestreI .

Even these bare facts are subject to dispute. Victor LeClerc, for example, conjectured that he was originally Flemish.^[29] But Artois seems a more precise indication of his place of birth, as suggested not only by the language of his histories, but also by his solicitude for the fate of the region, his care in relating the events that occurred there as a re-suit of Louis VIII's acquisition of the county, and, in particular, his emotional lament concerning the devastation wreaked by royal officials such as the bailli Nevelon, who administered Artois in Louis's name after its annexation to the royal domain.

Léopold Delisle proposed that the Anonymous be identified with a maître Matthieu, a cleric whose service in the household of Guillaume II of Béhune is recorded in a charter of April 1214, by which the grateful Guillaume bestowed upon him the sum of twelve livres, derived from an annual tax levied on the stalls of Béthune (ad scopas Bethunie ).^[30] But it is much more likely, as O. Holder-Egger originally proposed, that he was in the employ not of Guillaume, but of Robert VII of Béthune.^[31] The evidence for this assertion rests on the Anonymous's treatment of his patron within the two histories that he composed and on the degree to which his narrative indicates that he was an eyewitness to events in which Robert VII participated.

To begin with, the detail with which he recounts the smallest matters relating to the house of Béthune—and among its members, to Robert VII especially—is out of proportion to the rather general character of the remainder of his chronicle. Moreover, not only is the Anonymous extraordinarily well informed about events in Flanders during the turbulent era of struggle against Philip Augustus that reached its climax in the battle of Bouvines; he also presents extremely accurate information on the departure of the Flemish barons to England and their service with John's army at the time of Prince Louis's invasion of England in 1216—information that can only stem from direct knowledge. It is logical to conclude, therefore, that he accompanied Robert of Béthune during the period when he served among the mercenary forces of John of England, a crossing of the Channel not made by Guillaume.

It is not certain, either, that the Anonymous was a cleric. As Charles Petit-Dutaillis already pointed out, his chronicles, although employing Latin historical works as sources, reveal no evidence of a clerical or classical education, and his writing is devoid of the sort of learned, classical allusions that mark even so secular a cleric as Guillaume le Breton.^[32] More likely, he was a literate "siergans et me-

nestreus," as Holder-Egger supposed, who had succeeded in attaching himself to the household of Robert of Béthune.^[33]

The Anonymous's patron, Robert VII of Béthune, was the second son of Guillaume II. Shortly after 1194, Guillaume II had become lord of Béthune and advocate of Arras and, through his marriage in 1190 to Matilda, heiress to the seigneurie of Dendermonde in Flanders, lord of Dendermonde. The house of Béthune traced its ancestry back to Robert I Fasciculus, advocate of Arras around the year 1000 and possibly a descendant of the counts of Arras, given that he and his progeny continued to hold the office of advocate.^[34] It is likely, in any case, that Robert I Fasciculus descended from Carolingian nobility, since the sources consider him a princeps , and his son and successor, Robert II, is called nobilis in 1066.^[35] Galbert of Bruges specifically names Robert IV of Béthune (1090-1128) as belonging to the primi terrae Flandriarum and counts him among the peers (pares ) of Flanders^[36] Although Robert IV was not expressly designated nobilis , all his descendants were considered to be noble in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

During the lifetime of his parents and elder brother, Daniel, Robert VII was a relatively poor knight without lands of his own, which perhaps explains his readiness to enlist on the side of King John, whose largesse to potential vassals in his bid for Flemish support against Philip Augustus was renowned^[37] Indeed, among the Flemish barons singled out for favors from King John, Robert VII figures most frequently in the rolls as the recipient of royal attention and gifts. Relations between the house of Béthune and the kings of England went back at least to the time of Henry II. The name of Béthune figures as one of the three peers to appear on the list of Flemish nobles confirming the Recognitio Servitii , acknowledging the service "that the barons and castellans and other men of the county of Flanders owe to Henry the king of England as [their] lord for the fiefs which they hold from him." The Recognitio is dated 1163, indicating that members of the family were already receiving money-fiefs, if not actual land, from the English king by the middle of the twelfth century.^[38] Territorial grants to the Béthunes may have begun as early as 1175, when Count Philippe of Alsace had occasion to send Robert VII's grandfather, Robert V "Le Roux," on a mission to England, where, perhaps in return for services rendered, he obtained important holdings in fief. Robert's father, Guillaume II, also received lands in England from Henry II, grants rapidly augmented under Richard I and John. Privileges were

added to possessions when Guillaume's brother, Jean of Béthune, privet of Douai and future bishop of Cambrai, was granted formal support by the king of England to obtain the deanship of York^[39] By the turn of the twelfth century, then, the whole Béthune family was to some extent already under English influence.

This pattern of service and reward continued well into the next generation. Both Robert and his brother Daniel are found on the receiving end of royal favors in the Close and Patent Rolls for John's reign. When Guillaume II died in 1214, John confirmed to Robert the full seisin of all the lands and revenues that his father had enjoyed in England, which now devolved to Robert by hereditary right.^[40] On 11 April of the same year, the king offered Robert an additional one hundred pounds,^[41] followed shortly thereafter by a gift of two hundred pounds^[42] Given this extraordinary pattern of royal generosity to Robert VII of Béthune, it is not surprising that when Count Ferrand of Flanders sent Baldwin of Nieuwpoort to England to request John's aid against Philip Augustus, the count's messenger immediately identified Robert as a particular royal favorite among the group of Flemish nobles gathered at the English court. According to the Anonymous, who had accompanied his master across the Channel, Baldwin met with "vi haus homes de Flanders . . . et plusiors autres bacelors" (six high men of Flanders . . . and several other bachelors), who elected Robert VII to plead the Flemish cause before the English king.^[43] Robert did so successfully, helped to lead the expedition that surprised the French fleet at Damme, and continued to play an important role in the war against Philip Augustus throughout 1213 and 1214, eventually, after Bouvines, enlisting as a constable in the English army.

The Anonymous of Béthune's reporting of numerous incidents fully supports the notion that he was an eyewitness to the events he chronicled. Thus, for example, Holder-Egger believes that it was the Anonymous himself who read aloud to Robert of Béthune and the assembled Flemish barons the letters in 1216 from King John requesting Flemish aid against his rebellious barons, which he introduces into his narrative with the phrase "Or oiies que les lettres disoient" (Now hear what the letters said).^[44] His account of the dismay felt by the Flemish barons in England when John signed Magna Carta without consulting them, and their ensuing confrontation with the king over the matter, constitutes one of the most vividly recounted moments in his history and has the feel of a report from a participant-observer. He is so well informed about the doings of the house of Béthune that in naming one of the prisoners taken by Philip Augustus's army under

the walls of Damme on 1 June 1213, he adds that this prisoner had earlier been dubbed as a knight by his cousin, Robert of Béthune.^[45] But it is especially in his account of the deliverance, in 1214, of the countess of Guines by Robert of Béthune and of the death of Robert's father, Guillaume II of Béthune, and the reaction of Guillaume's widow, Matilda, that he appears, as Delisle remarked, "se révéler un témoin oculaire des faits dont Béthune fut alors le théâtre."^[46]

The Anonymous often includes summaries of conversations that took place among the principal actors in the events he chronicled as well as personal details about the participants, such as his description of Baldwin, count of Aumale, as a "preudom et loiaus et boins chevaliers; mais si estoit mehaigniés de la goute artetyque que il ne pooit aler .i. pas, ains le couvenoit porter" (honorable man and loyal and good knight; but he was so stricken with arthritic gout that he could not take a single step, but it was necessary to carry him).^[47] His knowledge of the count's crippling gout betokens firsthand acquaintance. The Anonymous similarly relates Isabelle of Angoulême's scornful retort to her husband, King John, after he complained that he had lost all for her sake—a reference to the fact that Philip Augustus had used the occasion of John's marriage to Isabelle, then engaged to Hugh le Brun of Lusignan, to cite the English king to his court and to declare him forfeit of his continental possessions when John refused to appear. According to the Anonymous of Béthune, the haughty queen, cause of so much of the military conflict of the first decades of the thirteenth century, replied: " 'Sire, ausi ai-jou le melleur chevalier dou monde perdu por vous'"^[48] ("My lord, I too have lost the best knight in the world for you"), a story that smacks of court gossip to which the Anonymous was privy. His understanding and description of the workings not only of the English court, but of the entourage of Philip Augustus as well, places him at the center of the major political events of his era, on which he provides precious and often unique information in vivid and amusing detail.

Scholars initially questioned whether the Anonymous was the author of both the Histoire des ducs de Normandie et des rois d'Angleterre and the Chronique des rois de France . In part, this doubt arose from the seeming illogic of a single chronicler producing two versions of virtually identical material, apparently written in quick succession one after the other. The two histories differ considerably in their opening sections, locating the events of contemporary history in distinct national histories and traditions that draw on quite divergent bodies of source materials. But with the narration of recent history,

the texts cover essentially the same material in similar arrangement and include a large number of identical anecdotes, descriptions of historical actors, and reports of speeches and events. Although the chronicles do not precisely duplicate each other, their respective treatments of the same period of French and English history exhibit a striking degree of complementarity.

At present, though, based on the fundamental convergence of the material treated in the contemporary sections of the Histoire and the Chronique , most scholars have concluded that the Anonymous of Bé-thune was, indeed, the compiler of both works. In a large number of manuscripts the French and English histories are copied one after the other, suggesting that they were seen as deriving from a single author.^[49] The most powerful argument for the Anonymous's author-ship of both works, however, stems from his style of writing and methods of narration. In each text he employs a vigorous language aimed at pleasing a lay audience in a graceful and lively manner, creating a narrative through which he scatters amusing anecdotes, proverbial sayings, and memorable dialogues. Similarly, the narrative sequence of dynastic history is constantly interrupted in both works by the insertion of material relating to Flanders and the Béthunes, justified by remarks such as that found in the Histoire des ducs de Normandie : "Por chou que il m'estuet conter de .ij. estores, de celi d'Engletierre et de celi de Flandres, ne vous puis-jou pas toutes les choses conter en ordre" (Because I am endeavoring to recount two stories, that of England and that of Flanders, I cannot relate everything to you in order).^[50] It is, in fact, the almost excessive preoccupation (excessive, that is, in terms of the overall economy of the works) with Flemish affairs that decisively marks them as the product of a single pen. One peculiarity to be noted is the virtual absence in the Histoire of any account of the battle of Bouvines, which is merely alluded to in a few lines, in contrast to the ten columns of manuscript text that it occupies in the Chronique des rois de France ,^[51] a distinction that surely must be attributed to the fact that the combined German, Flemish, and English forces were unsuccessful at Bouvines, concerning which the Anonymous, in his capacity as chronicler of the coalition in the Histoire , exercises a diplomatic reticence.

Despite the extensive community of subject matter shared by the Histoire and Chronique , contemporary history is not reproduced in identical terms in the two texts. Accounts of some events are more highly developed in the Histoire , and this work is characterized by a livelier sense of narrative development, providing more often than is

found in the Chronique reported conversations, psychological portraits of the participants, most notably of King John, and a more precise presentation of events. This differential treatment of English and French history doubtless results from the fact that Robert of Béthune was allied for much of the period covered by the histories with John of England, and as Robert's companion the Anonymous had far greater knowledge of the events surrounding the war in England and Flanders than in France. Yet the Chronique is also notable for its exactitude, as its editor Delisle has signaled, requiring little correction other than for matters that came to the Anonymous via hearsay.^[52]

It seems that the first of the histories written by the Anonymous was the Histoire des ducs de Normandie et des rois d'Angleterre , which Holder-Egger dates to 1220 or shortly after.^[53] The Histoire opens with the passage "par la devision que li anciien home fisent dou monde, savons-nous que toute la tierre est enclose de la grant mer, ke on apiele Occean " (by the division that the ancients made of the world, we know that all the land is enclosed by a great sea, which is called Ocean ), a translation into lucid thirteenth-century French prose of the beginning of Dudo of Saint-Quentin's De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum .^[54] Dudo's largely legendary account had been incorporated in an abridged form into Guillaume de Jumiéges's Historia Normannorum , and Francisque Michel asserts that the opening section of the Histoire "n'est autre chose qu'une analyse de l'histoire des Normands de Guillaume de Jumiéges, augmentée d'une suite peu considerable."^[55]

This assertion is not entirely accurate, since the French text is at places closer to Dudo than to Guillaume de Jumiéges and includes the translation of material found in Dudo but left out in Guillaume. Paul Meyer doubted, however, that the Anonymous was working from Du-do's text itself, which was rarely read in the thirteenth century and in which, in any case, he could not have found all the material included in his history. It is more likely, in Meyer's opinion, that the Anonymous used a compilation of Norman history in which most of Dudo's text figured. The work that best fits this description is the Chronique de Normandie , in a version such as that found in Cambridge II.6.24 and B.N. fr. 24431, to which, in its opening sections, the Histoire of the Anonymous is virtually identical.^[56]

Beginning with the reign of William Rufus, the Anonymous increasingly develops the material found in the Chronique de Normandie , while continuing to exploit it through the reign of Henry I. He provides an extended discussion of the struggle between Stephen

and Matilda over the disputed succession to the English throne, but merely scant notes relating to the reign of Henry II and an only slightly fuller treatment of the reign of Richard I. Beginning in 1199, after the death of Richard Lion-Heart, the text becomes a completely original account of events during the reign of King John and the beginning of the reign of Henry III, concluding in 1220. Given the Anonymous's heavy reliance on the Chronique de Normandie for his historical narrative prior to 1199, it is only the final section of the Histoire that has attracted the interest of editors and historians.

The Chronique des rois de France was written shortly after the Histoire des ducs de Normandie et des rois d'Angleterre , sometime between 1220 and 1223—that is, before the accession of Louis VIII (1223-1226)—though the actual narrative breaks off earlier, in 1217, in the middle of an account of the French expedition to England. The only complete text of the Chronique is found in B.N. nouv. acq. fr. 6295; however, it is marred by a scribal bourdon that occurs at the bottom of column A on folio 4v, resulting in the omission of the reigns of the Merovingian kings after Theodebert, son of Theoderic. ^[57]

The Chronique des rois de France is divided into four distinct sections, each of which draws on a different Latin source and all of which, for the sections prior to 1185, differ from the sources used in the Histoire . Part one traces the early history of French kingship from the time of the destruction of Troy and is based on a Latin chronicle from Saint-Denis known as the Abbreviatio Regum Francorum , in a version close to that published by George Waitz in the Neues Archiv .^[58] Although the Abbreviatio carried its history to 1108 (with an early continuation to 1137), the Anonymous does not translate the entire text. Instead, arriving at the reign of Charlemagne, he inaugurates part two of the Chronique by inserting the vernacular version of the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle (named by Walpole Turpin I ), which is essentially the same as that found in B.N. fr. 1850.^[59] It is preceded by an abridged version of the Descriptio , that is, of Charlemagne's journey to Jerusalem.^[60] The only other manuscript of the Chronique des rois de France to incorporate the Descriptio-Turpin as an integral part of the history of the kings of France is Vat. Reg. Lat. 610, which also contains a continuation of the narrative up to the denunciation of the "False Baldwin" at Péronne in the presence of Louis VIII in 1225.^[61]

Part three of the Chronique starts after the death of Charlemagne in 814 and is based on the Latin Historia Regum Francorum usque ad annum 1214 , written by a monk of Saint-Germain-des-Prés,^[62] although here again, the Anonymous does not translate the full text in

his history, but only those portions up to 1185. The Anonymous's translation of the Latin Historia is completely independent of the translation of the same work made in the middle of the thirteenth century by the Ménestrel d'Alphonse de Poitiers.^[63] It also possesses several interpolations, notably the Visio Karoli Calvi and the legend of Isembard and Gormond,^[64] as well as a prose paraphrase of the verses engraved on the tomb of Louis VII at Barbeaux. The account for the years 1180—1184, in addition, contains two interpolations important for the political events of that period. The first concerns the marriage of Philip Augustus to Isabelle, daughter of the count of Hainaut, whom the Anonymous describes as "une sainte damoisele," doubtless to counteract the rather low esteem in which she was later held by the king, who sought to abandon her and their marriage in 1187.^[65] The second involves his report on the "young Henry," eldest son of Henry II of England, as present in Philip Augustus's host in 1183.^[66]

With the account of the Vermandois succession toward 1185 the Anonymous's chronicle becomes original, continuing to the beginning of 1217, at which point his history breaks off abruptly. Although Delisle believed that the last event reported by the Anonymous was the siege of Dover in 1216, Petit-Dutaillis demonstrates that it concerns, rather, the affair of Rye, which immediately preceded Prince Louis's return to France in February 1217. The port of Rye had been occupied by Henry III's troops, and Louis sought to retake it but was blocked at Winchelsea and might have lost everything if the prior of Waast had not sent aid. The Anonymous's chronicle concludes before the reader learns that Louis has been saved.^[67] For events occurring after 1199, part four of the Chronique and the Histoire des ducs de Normandie display a striking degree of common material, though treated from subtly differing vantage points.

What is puzzling, however, is why the Anonymous should have written dual versions of contemporary history and which aristocratic audiences he had in mind in so doing. This is especially perplexing in the case of the Chronique des rois de France , written after the Histoire des ducs de Normandie et des rois d'Angleterre , since the Capetian focus of the work seems so at odds with the political sympathies and—by the time the work was initiated—history of defeated hostilities of the house of Béthune. The fact that both works are so often bound together in a single codex, sometimes directly following one another, at other times separated by intervening texts, suggests that scribes and copyists viewed them as complementary. In Walpole's opinion, "it is quite understandable that patrons wanted to have both works and that

scribes copied them together, [since they were] addressed to feudal families whose interests were not restricted to one side of the channel."^[68] According to Walpole, what appears in the manuscript tradition are

the scattered copies of what was once a simple and organic work, written by one author for a particular public and adapted by him in language and content to its interests, a French prose history reaching from its traditional starting place in Troy down to contemporary thirteenth-century events . . . and the history of the Normans as part of the history of France.^[69]

But this judgment accords badly with the fact that the Histoire des ducs de Normandie et des rois d'Angleterre was written first, suggesting that the original conception behind the work was to view it not in relation to the history of France, but in light of an autonomous Anglo-Norman tradition, embedded in a specifically Norman past that continued on to the present-day Angevins. For both chronicles, the parts anterior to the reigns of John Lackland and Philip Augustus employ compilations in Latin and French appropriate for their respective histories but, as we have seen, completely distinct from one another. Insofar as Anglo-Norman history is set against the background of the arrival of the Normans and their subsequent career of conquest in England, it is difficult to see it as an integral part of the history of France. Similarly, the Capetian past is traced back in an altogether traditional fashion to the Trojan origins of the Franks, the settlement of the Trojan remnant in France, and the foundation of French kingship with Pharamond, succeeded by the reigns of the Merovingian, Carolingian, and, ultimately, Capetian kings. From the perspective of French history, the Normans represent an intrusion into an otherwise continuous history, the essential linearity of which is not disrupted, since the royal future of the Normans lay not in France but in England. The recital of contemporary history thus does little to disturb the distinctive orientations of the two works, despite the fact that the events recounted overlap considerably.

What ties the two chronicles together most powerfully, in fact, is the intermediary and mediating role played in each by the Flemish, whose incessant crossings of the Channel bind together the histories of the royal powers contending for their allegiance. Any explanation of the motives that might have prompted the Anonymous to compose two distinct works of history that share a common present must, therefore, take into account the centrality, both literally and figuratively, of Flanders in their narrative structures.

One possible interpretation, advanced by Sayers, that incorporates the preoccupation with Flemish affairs as a principle of explanation is that the alternative versions represent an awkward but nonetheless significant attempt on the Anonymous's part to establish his historical impartiality, an impartiality "necessitated by the fact (never explicitly stated) that the house of his patron was divided in its support of the English and French monarchs."^[70] But the effect of this dual inscription of a single history, if truly read as an organic whole as Walpole and, by implication, Sayers suggest, is not impartiality, but incoherence, for it creates a schism within the presumptive integrity of the past. Rather than impartiality, I would suggest, the Anonymous's doubling of the past contests the notion that there is a single, uniquely possible narrative of history grounded in a universal truth for which God, ultimately, serves as guarantee. In writing two completely distinct versions of the same story—a rare phenomenon at best among medieval chroniclers—the Anonymous of Béthune does not so much demonstrate his impartiality as exteriorize and set forth the political forces and choices that weighed on the house of Béthune during the turbulent era at the turn of the thirteenth century.

The challenge facing the Béthunes in this period was not merely military; first and foremost, it was a challenge that involved determining what posture the house of Béthune should assume toward the superior powers that vied for its support. Which side to choose? Which world to belong to? How to carve out a social and political space from which to negotiate with these powers from a position of strength and independence? These were choices that had to be made, questions that had to be answered, and there existed no clear-cut guidelines for reaching a solution—as witness the division in the decisions ultimately arrived at by individual members of the family, whose loyalties were divided between allegiance to the Capetians and allegiance to the Plantagenets. And it is important to emphasize that the struggle between French and English kings not only rent the loyalties of family members with respect to others, but divided the house itself, creating novel social and political cleavages within it and within the Flemish aristocracy as a whole.

In that sense the Anonymous, by rewriting the same segment of contemporary history alternatively from the point of view of the two main forces vying for political influence over contemporary Franco-Flemish society, created works embodying the new conditions under which his own patron's house of Béthune was compelled to operate, in a world in which competition for loyalty, authority, and political

power had radically changed the social and political rules of the game. Just as Flanders was trapped politically between the rivalries of England and France, so the Anonymous's vision of history is fractured into competing versions, disclosing the incoherence of the nobility's position and the impossibility of negotiating a secure ground for the conduct of aristocratic life.