147 IN ONE CHARTER, THE KING FORMALLY GRANTS TO MARMOUTIER THEPRI...

1182.

¹⁴⁷

In one charter, the king formally grants to Marmoutier thepriory of Saint-Magloire de Lehon and its possessions.

¹⁴⁸

The othercharter records the settlement of disputes between Albert, bishop ofSaint-Malo, and Harvey, abbot of Marmoutier, over Saint-Magloire deLehon and other matters.

¹⁴⁹

In this charter, the king nominates himself`conservator et protector' of the settlement. Since the transaction tookplace after Geoffrey had become duke of Brittany in 1181, these chartersdo not pertain to the government of the duchy under Henry II. Theydo, however, re¯ect the pattern of Henry II's interest in Bretonmonasteries only when there was an `extra-Breton' element.As to the ®rst charter, it is not obvious how the king had title to grantthe possessions of Lehon to Marmoutier, since, with the exception ofone church in England and one in Normandy, all the possessions weresituated in Brittany.

¹⁵⁰

It is probable that negotiations regarding thetransaction began before Geoffrey became duke of Brittany, since oneof the relevant documents is dated February 1181.

¹⁵¹

Henry II may havetaken a close interest in the matter from its beginnings, before hetransferred control of Brittany to Geoffrey. Alternatively, by 1182,although Geoffrey was duke of Brittany, the king could have authorisedhis son's acts, in his capacity as duke of Normandy. The charter,however, nowhere alludes to this. In my opinion, one should not attachtoo great signi®cance to the source of the authority for this royal act,since it appears that anyone, lay or ecclesiastical, who was in a positionof authority over the three monasteries involved, (Saint-Magloire deLehon in Brittany, Saint-Magloire de Paris, and Marmoutier in Tours)or their relevant possessions, gave written con®rmation of this settle-ment.

¹⁵²

147

BN ms latin 12879, f. 176;

Actes d'Henri II, no.

dcxvi;

Preuves, col. 688. The date is established

by a dated charter of Albert, bishop of Saint-Malo, made on the same occasion (Actes d'Henri II,

no.

dcxvii).

148

BN ms latin 12879, fos 174v, no. 166 and 76r, no. 170;

Actes d'Henri II, no.

dcxv;

Preuves, col.

149

688.

BN ms latin 12879, f. 176r, no. 169;

Actes d'Henri II, no.

dcxvi;

Preuves

col. 688.

150

These are named in a forged, but nearly contemporary, charter enumerating the possessions of

Saint-Magloire de Lehon (Charters, Ge32).

151

BN ms latin 12879, f. 175r, no. 167.

152

BN ms latin 12879, folios 173±82. The settlement was con®rmed by Pope Lucius III,

Bartholomew archbishop of Tours, Albert bishop of Saint-Malo, Elias abbot of Saint-Magloire

de Paris, Hugo abbot of Saint-Germain-des-PreÂs, Philip Augustus, Henry II and Duke

Geoffrey. In fact, the con®rmations of Duke Geoffrey, Bishop Albert and Abbot Elias were

given in 1181, those of the two kings in 1182.

In February 1182, Henry II made his last will and testament. Amongmany pious bequests, the king bequeathed one hundred marcs to thenuns of `Sanctus Sulpicius Britannie',

¹⁵³

the nunnery of Saint-Sulpice-la-ForeÃt. This is the only bequest in the will to a bene®ciary in Brittany,but it was merely the latest of the king's acts of patronage towards thisabbey.Saint-Sulpice was founded, around 1112, by Ralph de la Fustaye, adisciple of Robert d'Arbrissel.

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It was thus part of the fashionablemonastic movement epitomised by the abbey of Fontevraud. Althoughit was situated within the diocese of Rennes, Saint-Sulpice was towardsthe east of the diocese, in the forest which separated Brittany fromMaine, and from its foundation, attracted the patronage of the aristoc-racy of Maine and Anjou as well as Brittany. In 1117, Fulk V, count ofAnjou, founded the priory of La Fontaine Saint-Martin in the dioceseof Le Mans. His son, Geoffrey Plantagenet, granted to this priory sixtyl.angevin from his revenues of Angers and Tours, a grant which wascon®rmed by Geoffrey's son, the future Henry II, in 1151.

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In the early years of his reign as king of England, Henry II issued acharter of con®rmation for Saint-Sulpice's priory of Lillechurch inHigham (Kent).

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It is clear, therefore, that Henry II was a benefactorof Saint-Sulpice in his capacity as count of Anjou and king of England,and would have patronised the nunnery regardless of whether he hadbecome lord of Brittany.Finally, patronage of Saint-Sulpice may explain Henry II's con®rma-tion for Locmaria, when he otherwise showed no interest in the dioceseof Quimper. Although Locmaria was founded as a Benedictine nunneryby the counts of Cornouaille in the ®rst half of the eleventh century,around 1124 it was reformed and subordinated to Saint-Sulpice.

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Despite the fact that the document recording the royal con®rmationassiduously fails to mention Saint-Sulpice, if one regards an act ofpatronage towards its priory of Locmaria as the equivalent of patronisingSaint-Sulpice itself, Henry II's con®rmation for Locmaria is explained.Turning from the regular clergy to the secular, there is similarly littleevidence of Henry II interfering with the election of bishops inBrittany, except the archbishop of Dol. The simple explanation is that

153

Actes d'Henri II, no.

dcxii.

154

H. Guillotel, `Les premiers temps de l'abbaye de Saint-Sulpice',

Bulletins de la socieÂte d'histoire et

d'archeÂologie de Bretagne

(1971±1974), 60±2.

155

Cart. Saint-Sulpice, nos.

liv,

ccxxv.

156

Cart. Saint-Sulpice, no.

lxv;

Actes d'Henri II, no.

xlii; S. Thompson,

Women religious: The

founding of English nunneries after the Norman Conquest, Oxford, 1991, pp. 131±2, 166.

157

Actes ineÂdits, no.

viii; J. Quaghebur, `Strategie lignageÁre et pouvoir politique en Cornouaille au

XIe sieÁcle',

MSHAB

68 (1991), 7±18;

Cart. Saint-Sulpice, no.

ccxviii.

he did not need to intervene, since the bishops of Brittany readilyaccepted Angevin lordship.

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The duchy of Brittany comprised nine dioceses, each of which wasunder the control of a local magnate in the eleventh century. The resultof the Gregorian reform movement was that the same seignorial familiesretained the regalian right and the right to present candidates forelection. Thus the regalian right for the archbishopric of Dol belongedto the lord of Combour, for Saint-Brieuc to the lord of Lamballe, forTreÂguier to the lord of TreÂguier, for Saint-Pol de LeÂon to the lord ofLeÂon. Only the dioceses of Nantes, Rennes, Quimper and possiblyVannes pertained to the duke of Brittany, as descendant of the relevantcomital families.

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It is in these dioceses, then, that one would expectto ®nd the in¯uence of Henry II in episcopal elections.In 1158, Henry II was welcomed in Nantes by the bishop, Bernardd'Escoublac. Although Bernard, according to custom, refused to swearfealty or any other oath to the king as count of Nantes, he directed hismen to swear fealty (`®delitas') to him.

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Henry II can have had noconcerns about Bernard's loyalty. Upon his death, he immediatelyapproved the election of Bernard's nephew, Robert, archdeacon ofNantes, as his successor.

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After his election, Robert was often at theking's court, in Normandy and even in England, and was evidently oneof the king's most trusted bishops.

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In the 1177 treaty between HenryII and Louis VII, Robert was named as one of three bishops chosen byHenry II to oversee the truce, and he was reappointed when Henry IIrenewed the treaty with Philip Augustus in 1180.

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In Rennes, a vacancy occurred soon after Henry II became lord ofBrittany. Here, Henry II intervened to secure the election of hischaplain, Stephen de FougeÁres, as bishop of Rennes.

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There can beno doubt of the role Stephen played in reinforcing royal authority inthe county of Rennes in the ®rst years after the abdication of Conan IV.

158

Pocquet du Haut-Jusse (1946), pp. 15±17.

159

In Nantes, HoeÈl had surrendered the count's regalian right in 1148, presumably as the price of

recognition of his comital regime by the church (Preuves, cols. 602±3).

160

Preuves, col. 803.

¹⁶¹

RT,

ii, p. 16;

Preuves, col. 104.

162

Between 1170 and 1173, Robert attested charters of Henry II at Chinon (Actes d'Henri II, no.

ccccxliv) and Le Mans (the con®rmation for Locmaria). He attested the `Treaty of Falaise' in

October 1174 (Actes d'Henri II, no.cccclxviii). Thereafter, he attested royal charters at Caen

(Actes d'Henri II, nos.

cccclxxiii,

cccclxxiv), Angers (Actes d'Henri II, nos.

diii

and

dix), Le

Mans (Actes d'Henri II, no.

dxx) and Winchester (Actes d'Henri II, no.dlxxxvii). Robert also

attested a charter of Duke Geoffrey, at Rennes (Charters, Ge6).

163

Actes d'Henri II, nos.

dvi

and

dl.

164

T. A. M. Bishop, `Stephen de FougeÁres ± a chancery scribe',

Cambridge Historical Journal

(1950),

106±7; R. A. Lodge (ed.),

Etienne de FougeÁres, Le Livre des ManieÁres, Geneva, 1979, `Introduc-

tion', pp. 13±16.

In his charters, Stephen is consistently styled `episcopus Redonensis etcapellanus regis Anglie'.

¹⁶⁵

The attestation of one of Stephen's acts byHenry II's seneschal of Rennes, William de Lanvallay, is probablymerely the isolated surviving record of what must have been an activepartnership between the heads of the civil and ecclesiastical administra-tions in Rennes, cooperating to consolidate royal authority. WhenStephen died in 1178, however, he was not replaced by another royalcourtier. Stephen's successor was Philip, abbot of the Cistercian abbeyof Clermont.

¹⁶⁶

Philip's relative detachment from royal politics isindicated by the fact that he did not attest any acts of Henry II.As for Quimper, the picture is less clear. From 1159 to 1167, thebishop was Bernard de MoeÈlan, formerly chancellor of the cathedral ofChartres. The origins of his successor, Geoffrey (c. 1167±84) areunknown. According to the notice recording Henry II's con®rmationfor the priory of Locmaria, Bishop Geoffrey was present at the royalcuriaat Le Mans in 1172, with Stephen, bishop of Rennes, and Robert,bishop of Nantes. In contrast with the other two bishops, Geoffrey mayhave been present only because of his interest in the subject-matter ofthe royal act.Additionally, the Angevins recovered control of some dioceses fromlay-magnates. Henry II certainly exercised the regalian right for thearchbishopric of Dol from 1161, in place of the lords of Combour. Afterthe defeat of Eudo de PorhoeÈt in 1175, Henry II potentially hadauthority over the bishop of Vannes. The saintly Breton bishop ofVannes, Rotald, died in 1177, but the circumstances of the election ofhis successor, Geoffrey (1177±82) are unfortunately unknown.

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Thirdly, the bishopric of Saint-Pol de LeÂon ceased to be controlled bythe lords of LeÂon, but here the small amount of evidence does notindicate Angevin interference.

¹⁶⁸

Even in the dioceses under baronial control, there is evidence thatthe bishops supported Henry II's regime. The support of Albert, bishop

165

E.g. AN mss L967, L977.

166

Since Philip's successor was Herbert, also abbot of Clermont (see pp. 118±19), there seems to

have been some connection between the chapter of Rennes and the Angevin abbey. If this was

not the result of the direct in¯uence of Henry II, it is at least further evidence of Angevin

in¯uence in eastern Brittany.

167

Gallia Christiana,

xiv, col. 925; J.-F. Le MeneÂ,

Abbayes et prieureÂs du dioceÁse de Vannes, Vannes,