Zoe’s Comments (group member since Jul 07, 2013)

Zoe’s comments from the Ask Carol McGrath group.

Carol wrote: "To start a new line off I wonder what thoughts you might have on the validity of memory and even in primary source material. I have been reading Marc Morris on The Norman Conquest. He does even que..."

A detailed, up-to-date diary is essential to jogging most people's memory. When I look back over mine, I'm always astonished at how much I've forgotten or misremembered.

Chinese Whispers (aka hearsay) make matters worse.

Worst of all is ingrained or deliberate prejudice.

All three together will give you a William of Poitiers.

Ralph the Staller shows that ethnic Bretons were established in military command positions in Edward the Confessor's England. King Harold would have dismissed Ralph from his post, which is likely what prompted him to join William's army.

His son Ralph, Baron of Gael, was also Baron of Montfort-sur-Meu. From him descended the aristocratic house of Montfort-Laval.

I learnt this from the German wikipedia article on Ralph de Gael, which is replete with interesting facts about his varied and interesting career in Brittany, England, Normandy, Denmark and the Near East.

King William's younger half-brother, Robert, the Count of Mortain, was described as of sluggish disposition. He was not often mentioned in the records of the time, despite his vast estates (worth about 2200 pounds).

But here's a Breton story about Robert, cited in http://www.geni.com/people/Robert-de-... and here translated from French:

"Relations with Brittany: Robert was active in the Duchy of Brittany after 1091.

According to the Chronicles of Vitre (a prosperous Breton border town), one day Robert and his men attempted a raid on the territory of Fougeres (in Ille-et-Vilaine), on the Breton side of the border with Normandy.

Robert was captured by Andre de Vitre, and Robert's men were killed or hanged. Robert offered his jailer [Andre] the hand of his eldest daughter [Emma], but while [Andre] was considering the proposal, Count William IV of Toulouse married her.

So, Robert then offered Andre the hand of Agnes, a younger daughter, with a dowry of six estates in Cornwall, to which Andre agreed.

The two barons then swore mutual assistance and exchanged twenty hostages as security. Agnes received everything André owned in the city of Rennes and the dower of his grandmother Ynoguen of Fougeres.

The marriage was confirmed by Robert de Torigni, and Andre de Vitre certainly held the lordship of Trigg in Cornwall in the early twelfth century.

Robert of Mortain also infeudated some of his land in England and Normandy to some Bretons from Fougeres, and certainly had significant interests in the region."

The above story is accurate as to the identities of two of Robert's sons-in-law; a third daughter, Denise, married Guido (Guy) of La Val (Laval) in Maine, a town quite near the Breton border.

Brian's two victories in 1068 and 1069 against the rebels in the south-west were recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; it was for this service that William the Conqueror granted Brian land in Cornwall: to judge by http://www.cornwallheritagetrust.org/..., Brian received at least 227 estates there, making him one of the great magnates.

Carol wrote: "... why did Brian, Alan's brother, give up his Cornish lands? ...."

Brian was probably injured during a battle, either one of those for which he was granted Cornwall, or in fighting with or against Ralph in 1075, or in another of William's many conflicts in England or on the Continent.

So Brian became a semi-invalid and (the Cornish website above says "after 1075", but the French language source cited at http://www.geni.com/people/Robert-de-... says "after 1072") retired to Brittany to be comforted by his bride.

Brian's lands were then given to King William's younger half-brother, Robert the Count of Mortain, who thereby became the largest landowner after the King.

In Brittany, Brian still witnessed charters for a number of years; I don't know when he died.

Was Brian involved in the Revolt of the Earls? If he had rebelled, one would think that such a major lord and general would be mentioned in the accounts of the revolt.

So I think it more likely that Brian was either engaged in other duties, or fought against the rebels.

King Stephen, who was William I's grandson, accepted Brian's nephew Alan Niger II's claim to Cornwall on the basis of Brian's having held it, so Stephen mustn't have thought of Brian as a perfidious rebel. Unfortunately, Ranulf de Gernon the Earl of Chester had meantime claimed the south-west, so Ranulf went over to Empress Matilda to get it back, and later captured and tortured this Alan until he signed it over.

Carol wrote: "... [were] there not Bretons who rebelled against [William I] after Hastings? ...."

Yes indeed: you're referring to the Revolt of the Earls in 1075 (see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolt_o...).

According to the little I've read, Ralph the Staller (a Constable for Edward the Confessor) was born in Norfolk of Breton parents. William made him Earl of East Anglia. He lived till 1068, being succeeded in his title by a son, Ralph Guader, also called Ralph de Gael (as he was Baron of Gael in Brittany).

In 1075, the younger Ralph contracted to marry Emma, a daughter of King William's most reliable Norman relative, William FitzOsbern, who had died in 1071. King William, who was out of the country at the time, was asked but refused to give royal sanction, so Ralph and Emma married anyway, in Exning, Cambridgeshire.

For some reason I don’t fathom, this quickly blew up into a revolt by the Odd Triple (Breton, Norman and Anglo-Saxon), namely Ralph de Gael, Roger of Breteuil (the younger of Emma’s brothers) who was the 2nd Earl of Hereford, and Waltheof who was the Earl of Northumberland and Huntingdon and Northampton (and was married to the King’s niece, i.e. Countess Adelaide's sister, Countess Judith of Lens).

The revolt was "plagued by disaster", and obviously Count Alan didn't support it because many of Ralph's properties were added to those Alan already held in East Anglia.

Waltheof confessed his part in the conspiracy to Archbishop Lanfranc, but the William I made an example of him and Waltheof became the only aristocrat executed by that King.

Roger was imprisoned, but "Ralph ... and his Countess Emma retired to [Brittany]. They left for the Holy Land, joining Robert [Curthose], Duke of Normandy, on the First Crusade, and died [on the road] circa 1101".

Ralph and Emma exemplify the fact that Bretons, and those they welcome into their country, have always valued freedom over unity (paradoxically, I think that's what unites them in adversity), so in late Roman times Brittany was a magnet for disaffected officials, soldiers and citizens, a role it maintained right through the Middle Ages, making it quite the melting pot.

My understanding, not having been there, but having viewed a good documentary (by a French-speaking Basque), is that the Breton coastline is rocky but still has many good harbours.
These are excellent questions. I'll hazard a guess to the first. Duke Alan II landed at Dol in 937 at the start of his successful venture to reclaim Brittany from the Loire Vikings. Dol is toward the Norman border and has an important See in the Penthievre region (as it is still called), so perhaps the ships were blessed by the Bishop of Dol and Alan embarked there?

Paula wrote: I thought it was Swannehaels

Do you mean Swanneschals?

That's my guess because I googled for "Swannehaels" and found only 1 page on "Sons of the Wolf" and your article on "The Wolf Banner".

Zoe wrote: "... an aspect of the `Battle of the Catalaunian Fields'"

In 451 the Mayor of Orleans was an Alan by ethnicity, named Sangiban. Attila the Hun's army (which included a large force of Ostrogoths) was proficient at breaking through city walls, so Sangiban offered the town to Attila provided that the citizens not be harmed.
The Roman General Aetius was furious: the citizens must be prepared to die rather than dishonour the empire. As it happens, they felt the same way, so Attila's army broke through and poured into the city.
At that very moment, Aetius and his allies, the Visigoths, Alans, Franks, Armoricans (people of north-west Gaul) and others, approached, so Attila, who did not find being on the receiving end of a siege appealing, led his army out. The Romans pursued him eastwards, caught up with him in the Catalaunian Plains, and the two armies jockeyed for position, then battle was joined. Much heroism ensued.
Now, Aetius had decided to punish the Alans by placing them front and centre, directly in the line of attack of the Huns' horse-archers, purposing to let the Ostrogoths surround the Alan flanks and ensure their annihilation.
The plan would have worked, but the Armorican archers held the high ground with the Romans, and fired such an accurate hail of arrows that it was the Huns' front line that fell, and it was the Ostrogoths who were flanked by the Visigoths.
After much fighting, night fell, and each side withdrew to its camp.
Attila devised a cunning plan to sneak-attack the sleeping Romans. As his men advanced under the cover of darkness, imagine his dismay when, from an unseen source, a continuous barrage of arrows shot into his front line. Attila had no option but to beat a hasty retreat to his own camp.
Next day, the Roman allies besieged Attila's camp, and Attila prepared his own funeral pyre. However, Aetius feared that with the Huns and Ostrogoths destroyed, the Visigoths would soon turn on the Romans, so he allowed Attila to escape.
After the battle, angry that the Armoricans had saved not only the Romans but also the Alans, Aetius mischievously used his authority to send many Alans to live in Armorica, expecting this to incite strife. He sent the other Alans to live in Galicia in Spain, because the Armoricans and Galicians were long-standing allies.
Aetius must have been even less happy when the Alans and Armoricans, appreciating each other's virtues, got along like old friends, intermarrying and exchanging military tactics.

Carol wrote: "I love that. If only I had known you before. Henrietta Leyser and google her is coming to my book launch tonight.

I see that Henrietta Leyser is an emeritus fellow of St Peter's College at Aubrey de Vere University. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_of_....)

Are you living in Brittany or England?"

Neither: I live in Melbourne, Australia. By the way, here's an excerpt from domesdaymap.co.uk on Melbourn in Cambridgeshire:

Lord in 1066: Kolsveinn.
Overlord in 1066: Edeva the fair.
Lord in 1086: Kolsveinn.
Tenant-in-chief in 1086: Count Alan of Brittany.

The apposite phrase is "smooth handover".

I so wish I were a European citizen! I'd be found studying all the archives and interviewing all the bset-informed locals.

Unfortunately, I've only visited Europe once, for five weeks in May-June 2008. I rushed through three wings of the Louvre in an afternoon, taking thousands of photographs. A few steps from the Mona Lisa were the most exquisite stained glass windows, utterly neglected by the crowds. In the Roman antiquities section, a white marble head of a young Cleopatra resembled Elizabeth Bennet, not Elizabeth Taylor.

Carol wrote: " ... Alan's black-haired half brother was Launcelot to her Guinivere. ..."

Conceivably, as Lancelot was said to have black hair, though the evidence suggests that Gunnhild and Alan Rufus were faithful to each other (much to Anselm's chagrin, as he'd predicted that AR was "about to repudiate her").

I think she stayed at Richmond because she loved it there, was welcomed as part of the family, and Alan Niger was the next best thing to Alan Rufus.

The surviving charters make clear that Eozen had many sons. Richmond went straight to Alan Niger, bypassing all of Alan Rufus's other brothers and half-brothers in England, so Niger was a legitimate senior son of Eozen and Agnes. Why did he have the same first name as his full-brother? Perhaps the two Alans were twins?

Carol wrote: "Thank you Zoe for commenting. I think Alan could well have known Edith Swan-Neck ..."

My understanding is that her nickname was "Swannesha", naively translated as "Nice Swan", but actually meaning "Gentle Swan".

Brittany is an interesting place, with very interesting people, as one soon discovers when they're interviewed: they have a range of quirky senses of humour.

What I like best about Bretons is how, since ancient times, they've accepted people from far and wide as members of their community and deliberately made strangers' customs their own, thereby seamlessly integrating Celts, Romans and Iranians, among others.

Recently I skimmed a precis of the book "From Scythia to Camelot" which asserts that a great many details of the Arthurian Cycle came from central Asia courtesy of the Alans who intermarried with the Bretons. (There's quite an heroic story behind that intermingling, too: it's an aspect of the "Battle of the Catalaunian Fields".)

Alans are the same people as the Ossetians of the Caucasus (who are considering renaming their country Alania).

Alans were part of the Persian and Roman Empires, and could reasonably be said to have founded the Mongol empire - Genghis Khan had red hair and blue-green eyes from his Alan ancestors, and his bodyguard were Alans, as were the shock troops whose courage under fire broke the Chinese defences.

The 11th and 12th centuries had many strong women. Two of my favourites are Isabelle de Montfort (the Lady of Nogent) (1058-1147) and Matilda of Tuscany (1046-1115).

Orderic Vitalis, who was critical of women's ways in politics, had a particular fondness for Isabelle, the Lady Knight, likening her to the Amazons and other legendary heroines.

Matilda of Tuscany (aka Mathilde of Canossa) ) fought the German Emperor for many years, suffered many reverses, and finally defeated him!

In 1088, Robert Curthose's attempt to seize England from William II was supported by Bishop Odo, Count Robert (Odo's brother and the biggest landholder after the King), and most of the other great magnates.

How did William II win? A few magnates supported him; these included one senior Councillor, Alan Rufus.

All things considered, I do get the impression that Count Alan and Bishop Odo were not friends at all.

William II pledged that he would govern more in the interests of the English than his father had, and so won the support of the native people. Evidently, Alan was happy with this.

So the City and Port of London (governed by Bretons for the next couple of centuries), as well as the East and North of England, were secure, and the people were loyal.

Robert Curthose's troops never made it to England: they blamed the weather, but there was also the matter of the English fleet, which I suspect was in the capable hands of Breton sailors.

Alan Rufus resigned his post as commander of the siege of Saint Suzanne (more on that another time, perhaps) in about 1085. Over Christmas 1085, King William met with his Council (surely including Alan) to discuss preparations for the Domesday Survey.

In 1082, Bishop Odo had been removed as Earl of Kent and put in prison, where he stayed - until William on his death-bed was persuaded by Odo's brother Robert to forgive him.

So in 1085, the most senior Councillors would have been Robert the Count of Mortain (with land in the West and South of England) and Count Alan Rufus (in the East and North).

David Roffe (http://oxford.academia.edu/DavidRoffe) finds it likely that the Survey was trialled in exquisite detail in Cambridgeshire (as the Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensis, or ICC); Little Domesday (Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk) followed; then Great Domesday (most of England) apparently started in Yorkshire. Alan Rufus scholars will notice a pattern: these are all on his side of the country, and in the same order as his major acquisitions. Hmmm.

The ICC is described by the Encyclopedia Britannica as "a very early draft of the Cambridgeshire material", in which is revealed "the actual procedure followed by the commissioners". "Their method was that of the sworn inquest, by which answers were given to a long list of definite questions."

Now, if there's one thing I know about Breton aristocrats, it's that they are sticklers for order and are very particular about detail, so the Domesday procedure bears all the hallmarks of Alan's strong influence.

As Carol already knows, Alan Rufus and his family are an interest of mine. Is there any witness to his bearing some guilt for the Harrying? The record suggests that he had, if anything, a fondness for the English. After the first northern rebellion, he was granted extensive lands in Yorkshire, so he must have helped defeat it, but what's odd is that he retained the old English lords.
Orderic Vitalis condemned King William for the subsequent Harrying (1069-1070), in which I read Bishop Odo played a major role, but Orderic is full of praise for Alan's decency: "He was ever studious for peace, a great lover of the poor, and an especial honorer of the religious; his death without issue occasioned no little sadness to the people".
Edwin and Morcar couldn't stand the ill-treatment of their people so they rebelled in 1071. After their defeat, Alan obtained a swathe of Edwin's towns, incorporated them into his "Land of Count Alan" and distributed the lordships among his brothers Ribald and Bodin, a brother-in-law Enisant Musard, and other Bretons. However, he also arranged for some Englishmen to be promoted to tenant-in-chief.
To compound the puzzle, Alan excluded Bishop Odo completely from his territory, restricted King William's claims to Ainderby Steeple, and allowed no other Norman lords to hold any land in his territory.
Alan's heirs portrayed the concession of Richmondshire as given, reluctantly, by a King who was surrounded by Breton knights.
Anselm is clear that Alan's and Gunnhild's love was mutual. Alan acquired much of Gunnhild's mother's, Edeva the Fair's, land in East Anglia.
Matilda d'Ayncourt was said, prior to Richard Sharpe's proposal, to be Alan's sister, and to have married in Bourn, Cambridgeshire in 1065. At that time, Almer of Bourn was the town's lord, and Edeva was its Overlord. Alan retained Almer and gave him additional towns. It would seem that Alan was well-acquainted with Edeva, and that he favoured her men.
Draw what conclusions you may.

Travel by sea was preferred, for all the reasons mentioned by the coastal peoples of north-west Europe: Galicians, Basques and Aquitanians, Bretons, Normans, Flemish, Angles/Saxons/Jutes, Scots, Irish and Norse.

The fastest around-the-world yachtsman is currently a Breton. The Bretons had a strong navy: they famously gave Julius Caesar a hard time, and in 937 they swept the Vikings from the English Channel en route to recovering Brittany from 30 years of Viking misrule. Viking raids on Breton naval bases often failed miserably, which is why the Bretons still had toe-holds along their coastline.

Around 5000 Bretons accompanied William the Conqueror to Pevensey and Hastings, in 100 ships (the ratio, 50 per ship, is close to estimates from other expeditions). If the near-contemporary claim that William's forces had 696 ships in total, then the Breton ships must, on average, have been larger than the Norman ones.