LE MANS

1876

We spoke some years ago of the architectural character of the chief churches of Le Mans, especially in comparison with those of Chartres. But the comparison was of a purely architectural kind, and hardly touched the general history and special position of the Cenomannian city among the cities of Gaul. That position is one which is almost unique. The city of the Cenomanni, the modern Le Mans, has never stood in the first rank of the cities of Europe, or even of Gaul; but there are few which are the centres of deeper or more varied interests. Le Mans has at once a princely, an ecclesiastical, and, above all, a municipal history. It is true that its princely and its ecclesiastical history are spread over many ages, while its municipal history is a thing of a moment; yet it is the municipal history which gives Le Mans its special character. Le Mans, in the course of its long history, has been many things; but it is before all things the city of the commune. Among cities north of the Loire—it might perhaps be unsafe to say among cities north of the Alps—Le Mans shares with Exeter the credit of asserting the position of a civic commonwealth in days when, even in more Southern lands, the steps taken in that direction were as yet but very imperfect. And it was against the same enemy that freedom was asserted by the insular and by the continental city. The freedom of Exeter and the freedom of Le Mans were alike asserted against the man who appeared in Maine as no less distinctly the Conqueror than he appeared in England. Exeter, in her character of commonwealth, checked the progress of William by the most determined opposition that he met with in the course of his insular conquest. Le Mans, conquered before William crossed the sea, threw off his yoke when he was master of the island as well as of the mainland. Had the men either of the island or of the mainland been capable of any enlarged political combinations, England and Maine would have done wisely to unite their forces against the common enemy. And it is just possible that those obscure dealings of Earl Harold with the powers of Gaul, which are dimly alluded to by the biographer of Eadward, may have had some object of this kind. But, if so, nothing practical came of them. Maine and England did nothing to help one another. In fact, when Maine was won back to William's obedience, the work was largely done by English hands, and those the hands of men who, there is some reason to think, had Hereward himself as their captain. The actual relations between England and Maine in the eleventh century were thus the exact opposite of what they ought to have been. Englishmen appeared on the mainland as the ravagers and conquerors of a district whose people ought to have been their closest allies. Still even this kind of negative relation does establish a kind of connexion between Maine and England. Above all, it establishes a special analogy between the English city which withstood the Conqueror, and the Gaulish city which revolted against him, in the name of the same principle which a century later was to do such great things among the cities of Lombardy.

The moment then of greatest interest in the history of the Cenomannian city is the moment of its short-lived republican independence. In the case of Le Mans, as in the case of Exeter, we should be well pleased if we knew more of the exact form of commonwealth which it was proposed to establish, and, above all, of the relations which were to be maintained between the city and the surrounding districts. Most likely nothing of the kind was ever put into shape. The commonwealth of Le Mans and the commonwealth of Exeter both sprang into being in a moment of patriotic enthusiasm, when the city and the surrounding districts were fully united in a vigorous effort against the common enemy. How the two were to get on together in more settled times they most likely did not stop to think. What we do know is that the citizens of Le Mans made a commune, that the people of the country at large zealously supported them, that the nobles swore to the new commonwealth unwillingly, and, in some cases, even dishonestly. All that we know about the matter comes from the historian of the Cenomannian Bishops, who first of all thinks the commune which the Norman Bishop naturally opposed to be a very wicked thing, but who afterwards, when it came to actual fighting, cannot help sympathising with the men of his own city. There was a commune of Le Mans, a commune in which all Maine shared, a commune which the Bishops and the nobles had to join against their will, and which one of the nobles betrayed as soon as he could.[66] That is about all our knowledge; it is just enough to make us wish to know a good deal more. It is enough to throw over Le Mans and Maine an interest which is shared by no other city and province of Northern Gaul; and it makes us feel a kind of disappointment in the inevitable fact that the greatest moment in the history of the city is exactly the one which has left no trace in its existing monuments.

Of the times earlier and later than the republican movement of the eleventh century Le Mans has abundant remains of all kinds. No city is more distinctly the Gaulish hill-fort which has gradually swelled into the Roman, the mediaeval, and the modern city. Yet the height of Le Mans is neither so lofty nor so isolated as those of many of its fellows. It is not a detached hill at all, nor does the city stand on the highest ground in its own immediate neighbourhood; and on the eastern, the inland side, the slope of the rising ground is very gradual. Yet the site of the hill-fort which grew into the city was happily chosen. It was pitched on the point where the high ground comes close to the river Sarthe and rises precipitously above it. From the river side then, the western side, Le Mans has most distinctly the character of a hill city, which comes out much less strongly in the approach from the east, while in the approach from the north, where there is an actual descent into the ancient city, it is altogether lost. It is from the river side then that those who wish—while there is yet time—to get a notion of what the Cenomannian city was, either in Roman or in mediaeval times, must go to look for it. The city has extended itself on this side as well as on the others, but it has extended itself in the form of an outlying suburb beyond the river. To the west, the north, and the south, the spread of the modern town has done much to wipe out the ancient landmarks.

The Roman remains of Le Mans show well how the conquering race in their distant foundations knew how to adapt themselves to every kind of position. There was one type of city which was preferred wherever the ground allowed of it; but that type was freely forsaken whenever practical necessity commanded that it should be forsaken. The hill of Vindinum, Suindinum, Subdinnum, whichever form we are to choose, therein differing from the hill of Isca, was not at all suited for the laying out of a city according to the familiar type of a Roman chester. The high ground immediately overlooking the river formed a long narrow ridge, and the space included within the Roman walls—la Cite, as distinguished from the more modern parts of the town—shows no approach to a square, but forms an irregular figure, which only by a stretch of courtesy can be called even an oblong. Within this again the chief ecclesiastical street, the Rue des Chanoines, running parallel with the more secular Grande Rue, bears in mediaeval documents the strange title of Vetus Roma, which has been held to point to a still earlier enclosure, that of the primitive Gaulish fort itself. Of the Roman walls, whose construction, like that of most Roman walls in Gaul and Britain, shows them to be not earlier than the third century, large portions still remain; indeed a little time back it might have been said that the river front of the wall, with its noble range of round bastions, was all but absolutely perfect. On the other side, towards the modern town, the wall was less perfect, but even there a great deal could be made out. But the Roman walls did not take in the whole even of the mediaeval city. In the thirteenth century an outer range of wall was raised close to the stream, taking in the suburb of La Tannerie; an extension to the south and south-east took in the quarter of Saint Ben'et, and another suburb called L'Eperon. More remarkably still, at the north-east corner of the Roman inclosure, the growth of the cathedral of Saint Julian to the east, exactly as in the case of Lincoln, overleaped the Roman wall and caused a further enlargement at this corner. It should be noticed that, contrary to the general Gaulish rule, the church of Le Mans stood in a corner of the original city, so as to make somewhat of an ecclesiastical quarter after a fashion English rather than Gaulish. In the Cenomannian state, the Prince, the Bishop, and the citizens all held their distinct places, and it was reasonable that their geographical quarters should be marked also. In fact, in the great days of Cenomannian history the Bishop was a power independent alike of Count and city. He owed temporal allegiance to neither, but held directly of the King at Laon or at Paris. Had the development of things in Gaul followed the same course as the development of things in Germany, Maine might have seen, like so many German lands, the ecclesiastical and the temporal principality and the free city, all side by side, bound together by no tie beyond such degree of dependence as any of them might have kept on the common centre. But when county, bishopric, and city all came under the strong hand of the Norman, all tendencies of this kind were checked. And they perished for ever when Normandy and Maine, instead of external fiefs, became incorporated provinces of the French kingdom.

Within and around the walls of the city there arose in different ages a series of buildings, ecclesiastical, military, and civil, which might claim for Le Mans a place among the cities of Gaul and Europe next after those cities which had been the actual seats of imperial or royal dominion. Above the river rose the double line of walls and towers, Roman and mediaeval, and high above them the vast and wondrous pile of Saint Julian's minster. On the side away from the river, the side pointing towards the hostile land of Anjou, built on the Roman wall itself and seemingly out of Roman materials, stood the palace of the Counts, well placed indeed for Count Herbert, Evigilans Canem, to sally forth on the nightly raids before which black Angers trembled.[67] And besides the dwellings of the temporal and spiritual chiefs, the ancient streets of Le Mans were set thick with houses, the dwellings of priests and citizens, which showed how well both classes throve, and how each did something for the adornment of the city in every form of art, from Romanesque to Renaissance. But a little time back the traveller might have seen at Le Mans more houses of the twelfth century than he would see anywhere north of Venice. And besides the works of her own princes, bishops, and citizens, Le Mans had also once to show the grimmer memorials of her conquerors. But, as not uncommonly happens, the memorials of the earlier time have outlived those of the later. At the northern end of the city William thought it needful to strengthen his greatest continental conquest by two distinct fortresses. Close by Saint Julian's, just outside the eastern line of the Roman wall, and formed, we may believe, out of its materials, rose the Castle, the Regia turris. Some way to the north-east, at a greater distance from the river, rose the fortress of Mons Barbatus or Mont Barbet, this last standing on higher ground than the city and the royal tower. But of the royal tower itself, and of the fortress into which it grew in later times, a few fragments only have escaped the politic destruction of the days of Richelieu. Of Mont Barbet nothing is left but the motte or agger, dating doubtless from far earlier days, but which, as so often happens, has outlived the buildings which were placed upon and around it. One would have been well pleased to see the whole line of defence, the double wall of the city, the double fortress of the Conqueror, grouping, as they must have done, with the endless towers and spires of the monastic and parochial churches of the city and its suburbs.

For, besides the great cathedral church within its walls, Le Mans was, as it were, girded with great ecclesiastical buildings. Two noble monastic churches, those of La Couture, on the south-eastern side of the city, and of Le Pre, on the other side of the river, still remain; and we have spoken of their architectural character in past years.[68] There were also the Abbeys of Beaulieu, beyond the river, and of St. Vincent opposite to it beyond Mont Barbet, of which the latter survives in the shape of a Renaissance rebuilding. And far away in a distant suburb to the east is the hospital founded by the last native prince of Le Mans, the great Henry, to whom his native city might seem as a central point of his vast domain, insular and continental. In him the blood of all the older rulers and enemies of Le Mans was joined together. The stock of the old Counts and of the Norman conquerors, the blood of Helias and of his Angevin representatives, all flowed together in the veins of the King who was born within the walls of Le Mans, and who, if he did not die within its walls, at least died of grief at seeing them in the hands of his enemy.



But it is painful for one who remembers Le Mans only eight years back to speak of what it is now. It is hard to believe that within that time Le Mans has beheld no slight or unimportant warfare beneath its walls, and that the city of Herbert and Helias bowed but yesterday to the power of a third conquering William. Le Mans has lost something through the foreign occupation, but the traveller needs to have it explained to him what it has lost. When we hear that the Bishop's palace got burned by the German invaders, it almost sounds as if Germans and Normans had got confounded. But the damage wrought by the last conquerors is being speedily made good on another site. It is the damage which is doing to the city by the merciless hands of its own people that never can be made good. One would have thought that the Cenomannian city on its height, the proud line of its Roman bulwarks, the noble works of later days which those bulwarks shelter, might have moved the heart of the most ruthless of destroyers. It might have been a good work to clear away the mean houses which cling to the Roman wall, and to let the mighty rampart stand forth in all its majesty; but among those who have the fate of the ancient city in their hands there is no thought of preservation—destruction is the only object. We know not who are the guilty ones. Perhaps there is some stuck-up Mayor or Prefect who would think himself a great man if he could make Le Mans as ugly and uninteresting as the dreary modern streets of Rouen or of Paris itself. It is at all events certain that M. Haussmann was not long ago seen in Le Mans, and such a presence at such a time is frightfully ominous. At any rate the facts which can be seen by the traveller's own eyes are beyond doubt. The later walls close by the river have been broken down to leave fragments here and there as ornaments in a kind of garden, and, worse still than this, the ancient wall has been broken through, and the ancient city itself cleft in twain. By an amount of labour which reminds one of Trajan cutting through the Quirinal, la Cite has been cut into two halves with a yawning gulf between them; the Roman wall is broken through, and the very best of the twelfth-century houses has been ruthlessly swept away. The excuse for this brutal havoc is to make a road or street of some kind direct from the modern town to the river. If the savages could have been persuaded to pay a visit to Devizes, they might there have learned that the claims of past and present may be reconciled. There the simple device of a tunnel carries the railway under the ancient mound without doing the least harm; and a tunnel might in the same way have connected the modern town with the Sarthe without doing the least damage either to Roman walls or Romanesque houses. But there are minds to which mere havoc gives a pleasure for its own sake. A great part of Saint Julian's is more than seven hundred years old, and in the eyes either of Bishop or of Prefect it may be ugly. The vast menhir which rests against one of its walls has seen many more than seven centuries, and the most devoted antiquary can hardly call it beautiful. When the Roman walls of Le Mans are not spared, nothing can be safe. All that can be done is for those in whose eyes antiquity is not a crime to run to and fro over the world as fast as may be, and see all that they can while anything is left.



MAINE

1876

We have already spoken of the capital of the Cenomanni, and some mention of the district naturally follows on that of the capital. In no part of Gaul, in the days at least when Le Mans and Maine stand out most prominently in general history, are the city and the district more closely connected. Maine was not, like Normandy, a large territory, inhabited to a great extent by a distinct people—a territory which, in all but name, was a kingdom rather than a duchy—a territory which, though cumbered by the relations of a nominal vassalage, fairly ranked, according to the standard of those times, among the great powers of Europe. Maine was simply one of the states which were cut off from the great duchy of France, and one over which Anjou, another state cut off in the like sort, always asserted a superiority. Setting aside the great though momentary incident of the war of the Commune, the history of Maine during its life as a separate state consists almost wholly of its tossings to and fro between its northern and its southern neighbours, Normandy and Anjou. The land of Maine, in short, is that of the district of a single city, forming a single ecclesiastical diocese. In old times it contained no considerable town but the capital; and even now, when the old county forms two modern departments, with Le Mans for the chef-lieu of Sarthe and Laval for the chef-lieu of Mayenne, the more modern capital is still far from reaching the size and population of the ancient one. Normandy, with its seven ancient dioceses, its five modern departments, cuts quite another figure on the map. With so many local centres, Rouen never was Normandy in the sense in which Le Mans certainly was Maine; and the strong feeling of municipal life which, as the history of the commune shows, must have always gone on at Le Mans, may have tended to make a greater concentration of the being of the whole district in the capital than was found in other districts of the same kind. Add to this, that, though the land of Maine contained but a single diocese, yet that diocese was of much larger and greater extent than any of the seven dioceses of Normandy. This is shown by the fact that, while in the modern ecclesiastical arrangements of France, two of the Norman dioceses have been united with others, the one Cenomannian diocese has been divided into two.

In another point also Maine shows itself very distinctly as a Northern district. This is in its architecture. As Anjou is the architectural borderland between Northern and Southern Gaul, so Maine is again the architectural borderland between Normandy and Anjou. But it shows its character as a borderland, not by possessing an intermediate style, as the Angevin style is distinctly intermediate between the styles of Normandy and of Aquitaine, but rather by using the Norman and Angevin styles side by side. In the nave of St. Julian's itself, an Angevin clerestory and vault is set upon an arcade and triforium which may be called Norman. At La Couture the nave has wholly given way to an Angevin rebuilding, while the choir remains Norman, with a touch of earlier days about it. In the third great church of Le Mans, that of Le Pre, the Angevin influence does not come in at all. In the department of military architecture, Sir Francis Palgrave says that the familiar Norman square keep was borrowed from Maine; but he brings no evidence in support of this theory, nor have we been able to find any. It seems far more likely that the fashion was originally Norman, and that it then spread into the borderland, and it is certain that some of the most historically famous castles in the land of Maine were the work of Norman invaders.

Maine is, in one point, one of the parts of France in which an Englishman is most inclined to feel himself at home. It shares, though perhaps in not so marked a degree, the same English look which runs through a large part of Normandy and Brittany. It has hedges and green pastures, a sight pleasing to the eye after the dreary look of so many districts of France. The land is also fairly wooded, and the vine, of which we hear so much in our accounts of ancient Cenomannian warfare, is, to say the least, not so prominent a feature as it was then. And we need not say that vines, except either on a hill-side or against a house, do not add to the picturesqueness of a landscape. The land, without being strictly hilly, much less mountainous, is far from flat, and it contains some considerable heights, as the ranges culminating in the peak of Mont Aigu, which forms a prominent object from the theatre at Jublains, and the high ground at and near Le Mans itself, some points of which proved of great importance in the last warfare which Maine has seen. In short, without containing any very striking elevations, there are many sites in Maine well suited for military positions in ancient warfare, sites where the castle has not failed to spring up, and where a town or village has naturally gathered round the fortress. But since the city of the Diablintes was swept from the earth, Maine has, at least till quite modern times, contained no place which can at all set itself up as a rival to the ancient capital. The hill fort which grew into the city of the Cenomanni still remains the undoubted queen of the land of Herbert and Helias.

It is well to enter the Cenomannian county by a point which is Cenomannian no longer, but which not only plays a great part in the local history, but gives a view of a very large part of the land from which it was long ago severed. This is from the hill of Domfront, the fortress and town which the Conqueror wrested from Maine and added to Normandy; but which till the changes of modern times kept a sign of its old allegiance in still forming for ecclesiastical purposes part of the Cenomannian diocese. Domfront, the conquest of William, the cherished possession of Henry, is indeed an outpost of the Norman land, placed like a natural watch-tower, from which we may gaze over well nigh the whole extent of the land which lay between Normandy and the home of the enemy at Angers. Like Nottingham, town and castle stand on two heights, with a slight fall between them, and the town itself is strongly fortified, with a noble range of walls and towers which are largely preserved. The shattered donjon rises on the height where the Varenne runs through a narrow dell between the castle hill and a wild rock on the other side. Castle and town alike equally look out in the direction of danger; from either height it needs no strong effort of imagination to fancy ourselves on the look-out against the hosts of Geoffrey of the Hammer coming from the South. Yet it is at Domfront that the traveller coming from the land of Coutances and Avranches finds himself in one important point brought back to the modern world. After going for many days by such conveyances as he can find, he is there enabled to make his journey into the land of Maine by the help of the railway which leads from Caen to Laval. His first stage will take him to a spot which formed another of William's early conquests, but which was not, like Domfront, permanently cut off from the Cenomannian state.

This spot is Ambrieres, a town of the smallest class, hardly rising above a village, but which holds an important place in the wars of William and Geoffrey. There William built a castle, and the shattered piece of wall which overhangs the road running on the right bank of the Varenne may well be a part of his building. The little town climbs up, as it were, to the castle, and contains more than one house bearing signs of ancient date. It is clearly one of those towns which grew up immediately round the fortress. But of the castle itself so little is left that the most striking object now is the church, which stands apart on the other side of the river. A large cruciform building of nearly untouched and rather early Romanesque, it is thoroughly in harmony with the memories of the place. But the church of Ambrieres is more than this. It tells us in what direction we are travelling; its aisleless nave, though it would be narrow in Anjou, would be wide in England or Normandy; and there is another feature which looks as if the men of Ambrieres had got on almost too fast in their tendencies towards a southern type of architecture. The central tower is indeed low and massive, but so are many others both in Normandy and England; nor would the wooden spire with which it is crowned suggest that in the inside the four plain arches of its lantern support as perfect a cupola as if we were on the other side of the Loire. But both the arches of the lantern and the barrelled vault of the choir keep the round arch. Maine was far off from the land of the Saracen, and the pointed arch would here be a sign that later forms were not far off. From Ambrieres either the railway or, if the traveller likes it better, a road leading up and down over a series of low hills, will take him to another scene of William's victories at Mayenne. Here the town slopes down to the river of its own name on both sides, and the castle, instead of crowning either height, rises immediately above the stream. Eight years does much in the way of building up as well as of pulling down; and we may note that since we made an almost casual reference to Mayenne in 1868,[69] the eastern part of the great church, a building remarkable rather for a strange and picturesque outline than for any strict architectural beauty, has had its choir rebuilt on a vast scale after the type of a great minster. No place after the capital has a greater share in the history of the county.[70] It was the lordship of that Geoffrey of Mayenne who played so prominent a part in all the wars of William's day, a part which, both in its good and its bad side, well illustrates the position of the feudal noble. A faithful vassal to his lord, a patriotic defender of his country against an external invader, he could stoop to play the part of a perjured traitor when nobles had been forced to plight oaths against their will to be faithful to a civic commune. To the student of the twelfth century Mayenne is full of memories; to the student of earlier times its chief attraction will be that it is the most natural point of the journey to Jublains.

Further down the stream which gives its name alike to the town of Mayenne and the modern department, we come to the one place on Cenomannian ground which, as having become in modern times a seat of both civil and ecclesiastical rule, can alone pretend to any rivalry with the ancient capital. Laval, the chef-lieu of the department of Mayenne and the see of the newly founded bishopric, plays no great part in the early history of the district; but though still much smaller than Le Mans, it has fairly grown to the rank of a local capital as distinguished from a mere country town. It is one of the towns which have grown up on a hill and around a fortress,[71] yet it is not a hill city like Le Mans. The old town of Laval, as distinguished from the later suburb on the other side of the river, does not stand on the hill, but climbs up its side. While the Grande Rue of Le Mans runs along the ridge, the Grande Rue of Laval finds its way up the slope. The castle, as at Mayenne, rises above the river, and still keeps a huge round donjon, patched somewhat, but still keeping several of its coupled Romanesque windows. On the height, hard by a grand town-gate, is the now cathedral church, uncouth enough in the external view, and we may fairly say unworthy of its new rank, but which reveals one of the most instructive pieces of architectural history to be found anywhere. Imbedded in later additions, we still find the choir, transepts, and lantern of a comparatively small Romanesque church, perhaps hardly on a level with Ambrieres, but its nave has given way to a vast Angevin nave as wide as the transepts of the original building, and itself furnished with transepts to the west of them. The antiquary will earnestly pray that no one may be led by zeal without discretion to rebuild this church on a scale and style more worthy of its present rank. Let the diocese of Laval, if anybody chooses, be furnished with a new cathedral; but let the present building stand untouched, as one that has undergone changes as instructive as any that can be found.

But the church of the new diocese, though perhaps, by virtue of its singular changes, the most interesting, is hardly the most attractive ecclesiastical building in Laval and its immediate neighbourhood. Not far off in a suburb by the river-side is the church of Our Lady of Avesnieres, not improved certainly by its modern spire, but keeping a most stately Romanesque apse with surrounding chapels. Inside it supplies one of the best examples of the transition, the pointed arch having made its way into the great constructive arcades, but not into any of the smaller arches. But the taste of those who designed its capitals must have been singular. Any kind of man, beast, or bird, it has been said, can put himself into such a posture as to make an Ionic volute. When the volutes are made by the heads of eagles, well and good; but it is certainly strange to make them out of the heads of cranes, who are holding down their long necks to peck each one at a human skull which he firmly holds down with one of his feet. And on the other side of Laval will also be found the church of Price, an almost untouched Romanesque building the masonry of which seems to carry it back to days before the growth of either Angevin or Norman taste. And the land of Maine too is full of other spots at which we can barely glance, many of which are famous in the history of the district. On the railway between Laval and Le Mans, Evron has its abbey, with portions both of the earlier Romanesque and of the later Gothic, but where one little transitional chapel on the north side is undoubtedly the most attractive feature of the church. Evron too opens the way to St. Susanne, the one castle which the Conqueror himself could never take, and where the shattered shell of the unconquered donjon, with its foundations raised on a vitrified fort of primitive times, rises on a rocky height, with the stream of the Arne winding in a narrow dell beneath it. Somewhat nearer to the capital, Sille-le-Guillaume, a spot famous in the war of the commune, has a castle and church which should not be passed by, though it is only the under-story of the church which keeps any portions which can belong to the days when Sille was besieged by the armed citizens of the Cenomannian commonwealth. North of Le Mans, on the upper source of the Sarthe, Beaumont-le-Vicomte keeps the shell of its castle, a castle which long withstood the Conqueror, rising in a lovely position over the river Beaumont, too, has seen warfare in later days, and he who looks down from the castle which withstood the Conqueror may hear the tale of the stout fighting which went on by the banks of the Sarthe, when Maine was invaded by the armies of a later William. The church too with some genuine Romanesque portions, is more curious for a kind of rude Renaissance which really reproduces a simple kind of Romanesque. In short, there is hardly a spot in the historic land of Maine which has not its attractions for those who can stoop to scenery which, though always pleasing, is never sublime, to buildings of which perhaps one only in the whole province reaches the first rank, and to a history which, though in itself it is mainly local, has not been without its influence on the destines both of England and of France.



INDEX

A

Abbaye Blanche, near Mortain, 109, 110

Almeneches, 139 et seq.; its church, 150, 151; site of the castle, 152

Ambrieres, fortress of, 57, 229; architectural significance of its church, 230

Amiens, 8, 9, 23, 24, 47

Architecture in Normandy, its points of likeness with that of England, 23, 27, 28, 31, 46; Romanesque, at Bayeux, 28, 29; at Exmes, 147; at Le Mans, 206, 207, 209; transitional period well marked in Fecamp Abbey, 48

Argentan, 125-138

Arletta [Herleva], mother of William the Conqueror, 10

Arnulf of Montgomery, 141, 142

Arques, fortress of Count William at, 59, 60; battle of, 60

Avranches, historical associations of, 75; its position, ib., 81, 82; its ecclesiastical territory merged in the diocese of Coutances, 81

B

Barbe, M. Henri, quoted, 191, 194, 196

Bayeux, retention of the Danish tongue and religion at, 2, 6; Richard the Fearless educated at, ib.; Saxon and Danish colonies at, 5, 6; its cathedral church, 8, 22-30; the seminary chapel, 8, 30; compared with Coutances, 25-28; Bishop Odo's work at, 26, 28; later Romanesque at, 29; its English character, 30

Beaumont-le-Roger, 179 et seq.

Beaumont-le-Vicomte, castle and church, 234, 235

Beauvais, 9, 23, 24

Bernay, Judith's Abbey at, 8, 182, 188

Bigod, use of the name, 105

Brionne, character of the building, 97, 98

C

Caen, 2; its ecclesiastical buildings, 8; destruction of churches at, 19; burial-place of William the Conqueror, 51

Caesaris Burgus, 67. See Cherbourg

Calleva, its fall, 199. See Silchester

Carentan, 72

Castles, beginning of in England, 14; in Normandy, earlier and later sites of, 58; question as to the earliest date of stone castles in Normandy, 97

Caudebec, Teutonic origin of the name, 6

Cerisy, 8

Chandos, Sir John, building of the keep of St. Saviour attributed to, 71

Channel Islands, their relation to England, 65

Chartres, contrasted with Le Mans, 200 et seq.; its historical associations, 202, 203; architectural features of its cathedral church, 203, 204; why it differs from Le Mans, 204; its height, 207; its secondary churches, 209

Cherbourg, name probably cognate with Scarborough, 68

Churches, Norman, French and English, compared, 9, 23, 24, 46, 111

Cintheaux, 53, 54

Colomby, 70

Cotentin, derivation of the name, 62; its peninsular character, 64, 65; acquired by William Longsword, 66

Coutances, cathedral church of, 22 et seq., 82; its sham west front compared with that of Wells, 25; its internal architecture compared with that of Bayeux, 26, 27; men of, at Senlac, 66; its position, 72, 73, 75, 83; aqueduct at, 73, 88; its diocese enlarged, 81

D

Diablintes, tribal name survives in Jublains, 190

Dieppe, meaning of the name, 6

Dinan, 22, 54, 55

Dive, river, battle by, 60

Dol, church of, 22, et seq.; compared with S. Canice at Kilkenny, 25, 30; its position suggests St. David's, 30; east end compared with Wells, 31

Domfront, fortress of, won by William, 56, 228; compared with Falaise, ib.

Dumaine, l'Abbe L.V., his history of Tinchebray, 117, 118

E

Eadgar the AEtheling, at Tinchebray, 121; taken prisoner and released, 123

Ecclesiastical foundations, choice of sites for, 42, 43

Emma, Abbess of Almeneches, sister of Robert of Belleme, 140-143

England, likeness of Normandy to, how accounted for, 5-7

Eu, its historical associations, 58, 59

Evreux, 4, 8, 24

Evron, abbey at, 234

Exeter, commonwealth of, compared with Le Mans, 212, 213

Exmes, 139 et seq.; site of the castle, 144, 145; its church, 146-149

F

Falaise, birthplace of William the Conqueror, 10, 12; its historical associations, 11, 12; probable date of the castle, 15; its position, 16, 17; origin of the name, 16; spoiled by so-called restoration, 18-20, 53; compared with Domfront, 56

Fecamp, abbey of, 43 et seq.; transitional period well marked at, 47, 48; its fourteenth century alteration compared with Waltham, 49, 50

Flers, 113

G

Gally Knight, Mr., quoted, 82, 86, 106

Geoffrey of Mowbray, Bishop of Coutances, 67, 80

Geoffrey, Count of Mayenne, his betrayal of the Commune of Le Mans, 214, 231

Geoffrey Malaterra, quoted, 93, 94

Granville, 73

H

Harold, son of Godwine, received by William at Eu, 58; the guest of William Patey, 114, 115

Harold Blaatand, his settlement in the Cotentin, 5, 66; delivers the Norman Duchy, 60

Hauteville-la-Guichard, 90 et seq.

Helias of La Fleche, Count of Maine, at Tinchebray, 121, 122

Henry I. of England, 54; Avranchin held by, 76; wins back Saint James, 78; victorious at Tinchebray, 115, 120, 123; his treatment of Robert, 123; at Saint-Evroul, 164

Henry II. of England, homage paid him at Falaise by William the Lion, 11; his hospital at Le Mans, 209, 220

Henry I. of France, helps William against his rebellious vassals, 35; his personal experiences at Val-es-dunes, ib.; sees the slaughter at Varaville, 61; burns Argentan, 128, 130, 171; fortress of Tillieres burned by, 171; re-fortifies Tillieres, ib.

Henry of Beaumont, Earl of Warwick, 91

Herbert Wake-Dog, Count of Maine, 218

Herlwin, Abbot of Saint Peter's, Orleans, pillages Abbey of Saint-Evroul, 164

Hildebert, Bishop of Le Mans, ordered to pull down the towers of Saint Julian's, 132, 208

Holy Trinity, Abbey church of, at Beaumont-le-Roger, 185-187

Hubert of Rye receives William on his escape from Valognes, 114

Humfrey de Vetulis, father of Roger of Beaumont, 180

Hundred Years' War, personal nomenclature in Normandy, affected by, 5

J

Jublains and Silchester compared, 189-191; origin of the name, 190; its position, 191, 192; its Roman remains, 192, et seq.; numismatic evidence for date of fortress, 196-199

L

La Lande-Patry, 114, 115

Laigle, surname misunderstood, 154-156

Langlois, significance of the name, 5

Laval, 231, 232

Le Mans, contrasted with Chartres, 200, et seq.; Saint Julian's keeps its ancient nave, 205-207; its thirteenth century choir, 207, 208; destruction of its towers ordered by William Rufus, 208; its secondary churches, 209, 220; Henry the Second's hospital at, 220; owes its special character to its municipal history, 210-214; its analogy with Exeter, 212, 213; no existing monuments of the time of the Commune, 215; its position, ib.; Roman and mediaeval walls, 216, 217, 218; position of Saint Julian's, 217, 218; early greatness of its ecclesiastical and civil rulers, 217; its buildings, 218, 219; William's fortresses at, 219, 220; birthplace of Henry the Second, 220; German occupation of, 221; ruthless destruction at, 222; menhir at, 223

Les Vieilles, faubourg of, at Roger-le-Beaumont, 180; church of, 187, 188

Lessay, 72

Lewis-from-beyond-Sea, King of the West-Franks, taken captive by Harold Blaatand, 60

Limay, 52, 53

Louise of Silly, Abbess of Almeneches, 150

M

Maine, its history, 224 et seq.; its modern division, 225; architectural borderland between Normandy and Anjou, 226

Malger, Count of Mortain, 104

Mantes, 51, 53

Matilda of Flanders, Queen, her church of the Holy Trinity at Caen, 8; married to William at Eu, 58

Matilda, daughter of Richard the Fearless, marries Odo of Chartres, 170; dispute about her dowry, ib.

Matilda, Abbess of Almeneches, 143

Mayenne, 57, 58, 225, 230, 231

Montacute, siege of, raised by Geoffrey of Mowbray, 67; Norman name of Leodgaresburh (Lutgaresburg), 105

Mortagne, 101

Mortain, its position, 101, 102; site of the castle, 103; its history, 104; foundation of Saint-Evroul at, 105

Mortemer, battle of, 35; its position, 38, 39; reason for its historic interest, ib.; surprise of the French at, 40

N

Naeodunum, 190, 198. See Jublains

Neufbourg, 110

Neufchatel-en-Bray, its hills and cheeses, 39

Names, confusion of, 100, 101, 154, 155

Nomenclature, personal, in Normandy, affected by Hundred Years' War, 5; local traces of Danish, in Normandy, 6; in Gaul, 63

Normandy, its points of likeness with England, 3, 4, 41; compared with France proper, 3; Teutonic elements in, 5, 6; traces of Danish local nomenclature in, 6; its ecclesiastical buildings, 8; compared with those of France proper, 9, 23, 24; restoration and destruction in, 17-20, 29; importance of its early history, 33; its political absorption by France, 41, 218

Normans and English, original kindred of, 5-7; in England, English fusion of, 15; in Normandy, French fusion of, ib.

Notre-Dame, Avesnieres, 233

Notre-Dame, Domfront, 57

Notre-Dame, Saint-Lo, 83-85

Notre-Dame, Verneuil, 178

Notre-Dame de La Couture, Abbey of, Le Mans, 209, 220, 226

Notre-Dame de la Place, Argentan, 136

Notre-Dame-du-Pre, Le Mans, 209, 220, 226

O

Odelerius, sends his son Orderic to Saint-Evroul, 162

Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, his work at Bayeux, 26, 28

Odo II., Count of Chartres, refuses to give up his wife's dowry, 170; defeated, 171

Orderic (Vital), at Neufbourg, 110, 119; at Saint-Evroul, 143, 160, 162

Oximenses, use of the name, 140

P

Palgrave, Sir Francis, quoted, 39, 64, 101, 226

Periers, 72

Petit, Mr., quoted, 1

Puiseux, M.L., quoted, 33

Q

Querqueville, church of, 68, 69; origin of the name, 69

Quilly, 53, 54

R

Rennes, 55

Richard the Fearless, Duke of the Normans, educated at Bayeux, 2

Richard the Good, Duke of the Normans, fortifies Tillieres, 170; his dispute with Odo of Chartres, ib.

Richer of Laigle, his character and death, 156

Robert the Magnificent (the "Devil"), Duke of the Normans, castle of Falaise attributed to, 13-15

Robert, Duke of the Normans, eldest son of William, 54; his march to Tinchebray, 119; his captivity, 123; defeated by Robert of Belleme, 143

Robert, Count of Meulan, son of Roger of Beaumont, 91, 179, 181, 184; at Tinchebray, 122

Robert, Count of Mortain, 103, 105, 106

Robert of Belleme, at Tinchebray, 120, 121; banished by Henry, 141; his treatment of Almeneches, 142; defeats Robert, 143; his imprisonment, ib.

Robert of Grantmesnil, Abbot of Saint-Evroul, 162

Robert of Torigny, quoted, 122, 137

Robert the Bigod, accuses William of Mortain of treason, 105

Robert Wiscard, 91, 92, 98, 181

Roger I., Count of Sicily, 92, 98

Roger of Beaumont, 91, 179, 180

Roger of Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, 140, 141

Roger of Poitou son of Earl Roger, 137, 141, 142

Rolf, his settlement, 5, 36

Rouen, its French character, 2, 6; death of William the Conqueror at, 51

S

Saint Andrew, Chartres, 209

Saint Canice, Kilkenny, central tower of, compared with that of Dol, 25

Saint Cross, Saint-Lo, 85-87

Saint-Evroul, 143; his story, 162; his name, 163; memorials and relics of, 167

Saint Evroul Abbey, home of Orderic, 143, 160, et seq.; restored by families of Geroy and Grantmesnil, 162; pillaged by order of Hugh the Great, 164; its architectural remains, 165-167

Saint-Evroul, Mortain, its foundation, 106; its architectural features, 106-108

Saint German, Argentan, 127, 131-136

Saint Gervase, Falaise, 16, 173

Saint James, topographical use of the name, 77; fortified by William the Conqueror, ib., 78; won back by Henry the AEtheling, ib.; its position, ib.; site of William's castle, 79

Saint John, Verneuil, its tower, 176, 177

Saint Julian's, Le Mans, contrasted with cathedral church of Chartres, 200 et seq.; Romanesque work at, 206, 207; Angevin style in, 226. See also Le Mans.

Saint-Lo (Manche), town and church of, 83-87

Saint-Lo, Rouen, 80

Saint Martin, Argentan, 131, 134-136

Saint Martin, Laigle, 157, 158

Saint Martin-in-the-Vale, Chartres, 209

Saint Mary Magdalen, Verneuil, its fine tower, 175, 176

Saint Michael in Peril of the Sea, 44, 55

Saint Nicolas, Beaumont-le-Roger, 181, 182

Saint Nicolas, Coutances, 87, 88

Saint Peter, Abbey, Chartres, 209

Saint Peter, Coutances, 85, 87, 88; compared with Saint German, Argentan, 131

Saint Price, near Laval, 234

Saint Ouen, Rouen, 24

Saint Remigius, Tinchebray, 119

Saint Saviour, castle and abbey of, 70, 71

Saint Stephen's, Caen, 8, 26

Sainte-Susanne, 156, 234

Saxons, settlement of, at Bayeux, 5

Silchester and Jublains, compared, 189-191

Sille-le-Guillaume, 234

Surnames of places, 91, 92; misunderstood, 100, 101, 154-156

T

Talbot, John, Earl of Shrewsbury, his tower at Falaise, 11, 15, 16

Tancred of Hauteville, his home, 90, 95, 97, 98

Tillieres, its position and history, 169-171; church at, 172, 173

Tinchebray, battle of, an English victory, 115, 116, 120; site of the battle, 117

V

Val-es-dunes, battle of, a victory of the Roman over the Teuton, 35; site of the battle-field, 36, 37

Valognes, 69, 70

Varaville, battle of, 60

Verneuil, its position, 173; castle and donjon at, 174, 175; churches at, 175-178

Vimont, M. Eugene, his book on Argentan, 128, 136

Vire, 112

W

Wace, value of his description of the battle of Val-es-dunes, 37, 38; quoted, 114, 169

Wells, west front of cathedral church compared with that of Coutances, 25; east end compared with Dol, 31

William Longsword, Duke of the Normans, Danish education of his son, 2; wins the Cotentin, 66

William the Conqueror, his church of S. Stephen at Caen, 8; his birthplace, 10, 12; his attempt at learning English, 12; modern estimate of in Falaise, 13; present at the dedication of Odo's church at Bayeux, 28; results of his personal qualities, 34; seeks help of Henry I. of France, 34, 35; burns Mantes, 52; his marriage to Matilda at Eu, 58; Domfront submits to, 56; fortifies Ambrieres, 57; his conquest of Mayenne, ib., 230; takes Arques, 59; his surprise of the French at Varaville, 61; his escape from Valognes, 70, 114; fortifies Saint James, 77-79; gives the lands of William of Mortain to his half-brother Robert, 105; opposition of Le Mans to, 212

William Rufus, bids Bishop Hildebert pull down the towers of Saint Julian's, 132, 208

William, Count of Arques, his fortress, 59

William, Count of Mortain, 104; his lands given to Robert, 105; founds l'Abbaye Blanche, 109; with Duke Robert at Tinchebray, 119, 120, 121; taken prisoner, 123; his alleged blinding, ib.

William of Saint-Calais, use of the surname, 155

William Patry, receives Harold at La Lande, 115

William the Lion, King of Scots, does homage to Henry II. at Falaise, 11

THE END.

RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Lecture viii. p. 314.

[2] Methods of Hist. Study, Lecture vi. p. 235.

[3] Crewkerne Inaugural Address, 1871.

[4] Life of E.A. Freeman, vol. i. p. 293.

[5] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 137.

[6] See Petit's Architectural Studies in France, p. 2.

[7] Cf. the following passage in Mr. Freeman's article in The Saturday Review, August 3, 1867: "The primitive Saxons of Bayeux, the Danes of Rolf and of Harold Blaatand, the English colonists who remained in the fifteenth century, have among them left a marked stamp on the people. This last cause cannot have been an unimportant one, when we hear that in the town of Caen alone there are twenty-four families bearing the name of Langlois. French and Norman are not very uncommon names in England, but they are hardly found in the same proportion."

[8] On the foundation of the abbeys of St. Stephen and of the Holy Trinity, see Norman Conquest, vol. iii. (2nd ed.), p. 106, et seq.

[9] See Mr. Freeman's article on "Beauvais and Amiens" in Sketches from French Travel (Tauchnitz edition), and History of the Cathedral Church of Wells, p. 116.

[10] See Mr. Freeman's article on "Restoration and Destruction in France," Saturday Review, June 8, 1861.

[11] On Odo's work see also Norman Conquest, vol. ii. p. 209, and note, p. 210.

[12] See Norman Conquest, vol. iii. pp. 235, 236.

[13] Mr. Freeman alludes to M.L. Puiseux's Siege et Prise de Rouen par les Anglais, &c., which was reviewed by him in The Saturday Review, June 8, 1867.

[14] See Norman Conquest, vol. ii. p. 249, et seq.

[15] See Norman Conquest, vol. iii. 154, et seq.

[16] On the foundation of Fecamp, see Norman Conquest, vol. i. p. 253.

[17] See Norman Conquest, vol. ii. p. 286.

[18] See also p. 228.

[19] See also p. 229.

[20] See also p. 230.

[21] See Norman Conquest, vol. iii. p. 226.

[22] Norman Conquest, vol. iii., p. 122, et seq.

[23] See Norman Conquest, vol. i. pp. 216, 217.

[24] See Norman Conquest, vol. iii., p. 175.

[25] For the story of this derivation see Mr. Freeman's article on "South Pembrokeshire Castles" in English Towns and Districts, p. 46.

[26] On French nomenclature see also Mr. Freeman's article on "French and English Towns," pp. 35, 36, in Historical Essays, fourth series, and Sketches from French Travel, p. 99.

[27] On the relation of the Channel Islands to England, see Norman Conquest, vol. i. p. 187.

[28] On the relief of Montacute by Bishop Geoffrey, see Norman Conquest, vol. iv. p. 278.

[29] See Norman Conquest, vol. ii. pp. 242, 243.

[30] See above, p. 21.

[31] See also p. 88.

[32] See Norman Conquest, vol. iii. p. 233, note.

[33] Cf. S. James, near Taillebourg. (Sketches from French Travel, p. 296.)

[34] See The Reign of William Rufus, vol. i. p. 321.

[35] See above, p. 75.

[36] See above, p. 67.

[37] See Sketches from French Travel, p. 35.

[38] See p. 179.

[39] Historical Essays, third series, pp. 446-451.

[40] See Norman Conquest, vol. ii. pp. 261, 607.

[41] See Norman Conquest, vol. ii. p. 287.

[42] See Norman Conquest, vol. ii. p. 288.

[43] See Norman Conquest, vol. iv. pp. 170, 272. For the legend of the Holy Rood see Old English History, p. 271, and Mr. Freeman's article on "Montacute" in The Saturday Review, September 9, 1871.

[44] See Mr. Freeman's account of Kirkstall in English Towns and Districts, p. 294.

[45] See p. 119.

[46] Norman Conquest, vol. ii. p. 246.

[47] See Norman Conquest, vol. iii. p. 466.

[48] See Norman Conquest, vol. v. p. 175.

[49] See Historical Essays, Fourth Series, pp. 139, 140.

[50] See p. 208.

[51] See The Reign of William Rufus, vol. i. pp. 463, 464.

[52] See The Reign of William Rufus, vol. ii. p. 96.

[53] On the force of the word tyrant see History of Sicily, vol. ii. p. 50.

[54] See above, p. 123.

[55] See above, pp. 110, 119.

[56] See Norman Conquest, vol. iv. p. 496

[57] See Norman Conquest, vol. ii. p. 227.

[58] See Norman Conquest, vol. ii. pp. 201-203.

[59] See The Reign of William Rufus, vol. i. p. 184.

[60] See Sketches from French Travel, p. 266.

[61] See Mr. Freeman's article on "Silchester" in English Towns and Districts, p. 159.

[62] See English Towns and Districts, p. 163.

[63] See article on "Beauvais and Amiens" in Sketches from French Travel, p. 87.

[64] See The Reign of William Rufus, vol. ii, pp. 297, 298, 654.

[65] See Sketches from French Travel, pp. 114, 117.

[66] On the foundation of the commune of Le Mans and the treachery of Geoffrey of Mayenne, see Norman Conquest, vol. iv. p. 551, et seq.

[67] See Norman Conquest, iii. p. 192.

[68] See above, p. 209.

[69] See above, p. 57.

[70] See Norman Conquest, vol. ii. p. 209, et seq.

[71] See comparison of Laval with Guildford in Mr. Freeman's article on "Some Early Buildings in Sussex and Surrey" in The Guardian, August 22, 1883.

TRANSCRIBERS NOTE:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings. Obvious typographical errors in punctuation have been fixed. Corrections [in brackets] in the text are noted below:

Page 14 Val-des-dunes [Val-es-dunes] Page 15 Bayeaux [Bayeux] Page 57 Ambieres [Ambrieres] Page 64 Cotentin [Cotentin] Page 238 Edgar [Eadgar] Page 240 Almineches [Almeneches]

THE END