AND WOULD PROVE TO BE ONE OF THE FEW BARONS REMAINING FAITHFULTO...

1183, and would prove to be one of the few barons remaining faithfulto Henry II until his death.

⁸

It would be perfectly consistent withMaurice's place in Henry II's counsels if the king had appointed himseneschal of Brittany soon after Duke Geoffrey's death in 1186.This is supported by the sole record of Maurice as `senescallusBritannie', a charter of Duchess Constance made at Nantes, recording adonation for the soul of her late husband Geoffrey, but not mentioningher son Arthur, which suggests a date between Geoffrey's death andArthur's posthumous birth, that is before April 1187. Maurice musthave been seneschal of Brittany before June 1191. It was then that,preparing to join the Third Crusade, Maurice made his testament,which mentions debts incurred in Brittany, including one in the ducaldomain of Guingamp, and the expectation that Duchess Constance willdischarge some of his debts.

⁹

There is even less evidence for Alan de Dinan. Henry II might haveseen him as the natural successor to his uncle, Rolland de Dinan, theprincipal royal agent in Brittany from 1175 to 1181. There is no reasonwhy Alan should have been seen as other than trustworthy by eitherHenry II or Richard, since he held valuable English lands and his heiresswas married to a Manceau baron who was Maurice de Craon's stepson.Alan's well-recorded hostility towards Richard probably began onlywhen Richard intervened in Brittany in 1195±6. In the 1170s, theof®ce of seneschal of Rennes passed from a curialis with Bretonconnections, William de Lanvallay, to his kinsman, Reginald Boterel,who was more closely associated with the ducal regime. The sameprocess might have occurred here, with Maurice de Craon, an Angevinwith some Breton connections, being succeeded by Alan de Dinan, his

6

A. Bertrand de Brousillon (ed.),

La maison de Craon (1050±1480): Etude historique accompagneÂe du

cartulaire de Craon, 2 vols., Paris, 1893,

i, p. 99, no. 128.

7

RD,

i, 380;

Gesta,

i, 71;

Ann. ang., p. 38.

8

Gesta,

i, 192, 248, 298; P. Meyer (ed.),

L'histoire de Guillaume le MareÂchal, comte de Striguil et de

Pembroke, regent d'Angleterre de 1216 aÁ 1219, poeÁme francËaise, 3 vols., Paris, 1891±1901,

i, line 9307

and

ii, pp. 117±18.

9

Charters, C17; D. Bodard de la JacopieÁre,

Chroniques Craonnaises, Le Mans, 1871, p. 596.

Breton kinsman by marriage. The occasion for this change could havebeen the marriage of Constance and Ranulf in February 1189, when theneed for an authoritative Angevin agent in Brittany was diminished. Inany case, Ranulf can hardly have objected to Alan holding this highof®ce, since in 1199 he would marry Alan's widow, Clemencia deFougeÁres.It appears, then, that the of®ce of seneschal of Brittany was no morethan a short-term expedient, employed by Henry II in the immediateaftermath of Geoffrey's death and before Constance could be safelyremarried. This is suggested by the scarce records of these seneschals.Each is recorded with the title `Senescallus Britannie' in only one text,both being charters of Duchess Constance.

¹⁰

Neither left documentsissued in their own names, or attested by them, using this title. There arearound 70 known charters of Duchess Constance, but Maurice de Craonis mentioned in only this one. Alan de Dinan attested ®ve of DuchessConstance's charters, but is styled `Senescallus Britannie' in only one, andat least two of the ®ve concerned subject-matter in which Alan had aseignorial interest.

¹¹

It would appear then that the of®ce of seneschal ofBrittany was dispensed with at an early stage of Constance's regime.the government of brittany, 1186±1203

^{1 2}

The legal status of Duchess Constance for the period 1186±1201 isproblematical. What was the position of an heiress with a son? Arguably,the heiress ruled as a sort of regent until the heir was of an age to rule inhis own right (probably a matter of judgment in each case), at whichpoint she would hand over the exercise of government to him. This issuggested by the precedents of Bertha, the daughter and heiress of DukeConan III, who handed on to her son, Conan IV, her claims to thehonour of Richmond and the duchy of Brittany around 1153, and,more famously, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who saw her son Richardinvested as duke of Aquitaine in 1172. In Anjou in the thirteenthcentury, customary law deemed that, `a lady is only the custodian of herland once she has a male heir'. Yet, as the case of Eleanor of Aquitaineshows, the heiress did not lose her rights, which would revert to her ifthe heir predeceased her.

¹³

10

Charters, C17, C18.

¹¹

Charters, C15, C18, C24, C36, C39

12

The remarks in this section are intentionally brief as the evidence for administration 1186±1203,

such as it is, has been discussed in chapter 4, and the relevant documents are published in

Charters.

13

`Coutume de Touraine-Anjou', p. 44. See J.C. Holt, `AlieÂnor d'Aquitaine, Jean sans Terre et la

succession de 1199',

Cahiers de Civilisation MeÂdieÂvale

29 (1986), 95±100.

In Constance's case, there was a further complicating factor, the factthat her father had `given' her inheritance to Henry II in 1166, and theking had subsequently regranted it piecemeal to his son Geoffrey asConstance's husband. The county of Nantes, as previously discussed,was held on different terms again. Thus Constance's title was not asstraightforward as that of an heiress succeeding to her father's estateswith no more than seignorial licence. After Geoffrey's death, however,Constance had only her hereditary right to rely upon, and this mayexplain her adoption of the style `Conani comitis ®lia' in her acts after