This Ecclesiastical Adventurer': Henry of Saint-Jean d'Angély

'This Ecclesiastical Adventurer': Henry of Saint-Jean d'AngélyAuthor(s): Cecily ClarkSource: The English Historical Review, Vol. 84, No. 332 (Jul., 1969), pp. 548-560Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/562484 .

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548 'THIS ECCLESIASTICAL ADVENTURER': July

tibi illas honores quas mihi requiris; sed istam honorem qux fuit avunculo tuo - kastrum, turrem et omnem istam honorem - dabo tibi per talem conventum ut amplius mihi non requiras illam honorem quq fuit patri tuo vel ad aliis parentibus tuis, neque alias causas quas per rectum tuum requiris'.

Ut autem audivit Ugo dubitavit valde comitem, eo quod per malum ingenium eum in retro habebat in multis deductum. Dixit ad comitenz: 'Non sum ausus facere hoc, quia timeo ut malum me minasses, sicut habes factum de multas alias res.' Dixit comes Ugoni: 'Ego faciam tibi tales fidutias ut non amplius me non discredas'. Dixit ei Ugo: 'Quales?' Dixit comes: 'Pro uno servo tibi ostendam ut portet tibi iuditium ut non discredas quod illam quam fecerimus inter nos bona et firma sit. Et pro omnibus causas quq de retro fuerunt dampnum tibi amplias iam non eveniet, sed finis sit adtenta firma sine ullo mali ingenio'. Ut audivit Ugo quod ita dicebat Comes, dixit: 'Tu es meus senior; non accipiam de te fidutiam, sed tan (p. 279) tum mitto in misericordiam domini et in tua mercede'. Dixit Comes Ugoni: 'Relinque mihi omnes querelas de retro quas requirebas, et iura mihi fidelitatem et filio meo, et dabo tibi honorem avunculo tuo, aut contra concampnium tibi valente'. Et dixit Ugo: Senior precor te per Deum et per istum sanctum crucifixum qui in figura XPI factus est, ut non mihi facias facere si in antea tu et filius tuus vultis mihi minare per malum ingenium'. Dixit Comes: 'Ita faciam per fidem ego et filius meus, sine malo ingenio'. Dixit Ugo: 'Et quomodo habuero iuratam fidelitatem, tu requiras mihi castrum Kassiacum; et si non reddidero tibi, tu dicas quod non est rectum ut tibi vetem castrum qus de te habeo; et si tibi reddidero, tu autem et filius tuus tolletis mihi quia vos non habetis mihi fidutia facta nisi de Deo et de vestra mercede'. Dixit Comes; 'Non faciemus. Et si nos requisierimus tibi, tu noli nobis reddere'.

Per nomen autem de tali conventu ut sicut finis locuta fuit, quod comes et filius suus fidem portassent Ugoni sine malo ingenio, receperunt Ugonem ad hominem, in fide et in credentia. Et fecerunt Ugoni relinquere omnia quq de retro requirebat. Et iuravit illis fidelitatem, et dederunt illi honorem Ioszcelini avunculo suo, sicuta ipse tenebat illam (p. 280) uno anno antequam moreretur.

FINIUNT CONVENTI INTER COMITEM ET UGONEM

a. Sicut to illam omitted in editions b and c, which therefore read honorem Ioscelini avunculo suo tino anno antequam moreretur.

'This ecclesiastical adventurer': Henry of Saint-Jean d'Anglyl

IT is an odd career, a comic one even, that the Anglo-Saxon Chron- icle attributes to that Henry who is said to have enjoyed, from II27 to II 3I, the abbacy of Peterborough as well as that of Saint-Jean d'Angely:



I969 HENRY OF SAINT-JEAN D 'ANGELY 549

As a secular clerk he was bishop of Soissons. Then he became a monk at Cluny, and then prior of that abbey; and then he became prior at Sauenni. Next, because he was kinsman both to the king of England and to the count of Poitou, the count made him abbot of the abbey of Saint- Jean d'Angely. Then, through his great trickery, he obtained the archbishopric of Besancon and kept it for three days; and then most justly he forfeited it, since he had previously obtained it unjustly. Then he obtained the bishopric of Saintes, which was five miles from his abbey; this he kept for nearly a week; then the abbot of Cluny removed him from there, just as he had previously done from Besancon.l

He is also said to have been papal legate to England in II23. 2

And his further vicissitudes while trying to keep a hold on both abbeys, Peterborough as well as Saint-Jean d'Angely, are related with both wit and feeling.3

Such a story, almost too good to be truth unimproved by art, demands to be checked by independent evidence; and that, unfortunately, has hitherto proved hard to find.4 The Anglo-Latin historians are almost united in ignoring Henry of Angely and his adventures5: apart from Hugo Candidus, whose Chronicle is too closely related to the Peterborough text of the Anglo-Saxon Chron- icle to be regarded as an independent witness,6 the only one of the main chroniclers to mention him is Ordericus Vitalis; and his brief note implies by its use of the pluperfect a rather more res- pectable sequence of events than that in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

Rex Henrico, cognato suo, Burgum commendat, qui Sancti Johannis Baptiste Angeliaci abbas extiterat; sed a monachis et a Guillelmo, Pictavensi duce, expulsus fuerat.7

With this silence from insular and even from Anglo-Norman sources, it is therefore to continental ones we must look for confirmation of the Chronicle's story.8

i. Translated from C. Clark, ed. [The] Pet[erborough] Chron[icle I070-II4] (Oxford, I958), s.a. II27, p. 49.

2. Ibid., s.a. II23, p. 43, and s.a. II27, p. 49. 3. Ibid., s.a. II28, II30, II3I, II32, pp. 50, 52-4. For the style of the narration,

see Essays in Criticism, xviii (I968), 376-8I. 4. See, for instance, the brief note by C. Plummer, ed., Two of the Saxon Chronicles

Parallel, 2 vols. (Oxford I892-9), ii. 304 (from which my title is taken), and also my own, op. cit. p. 89.

S. He is not mentioned by William of Malmesbury, 'Florence' of Worcester, or Symeon of Durham and his continuators; Henry of Huntingdon even omits him from his list of abbots of Peterborough, see Epistola de Contemptu Mundi, in T. Arnold, ed., Historia Anglorum (R.S., I879), p. 3I8.

6. W. T. Mellows, ed., [The Peterborough Chronicle of] Hugh Candidus (Oxford, 1949), pp. xxi- xxxvi; see also Pet. Chron., pp. xx-xxi. For Henry of Angely, see Hugh Candidus, PP. 99-I04.

7. A. Le Prevost, ed., Orderici Vitalis Angligena ... Historia Ecclesiastica Libri Tredecim, 5 vols. (Paris, I838-55), iv. 430.

8. French secondary sources have been of little help here, since, although a number of them treat Henry of Angely's career in fair detail, these mostly prove to be relying on accounts derived either from Hugo Candidus or from Latin translations of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle itself: see, for instance, Gallia [Christiana], ix (Paris, I75 I),



5 50 THIS ECCLESIASTICAL ADVENTURER': July

On one point at least - the tenure of the abbacy of Saint-Jean d'Angely by a Henry at the appropriate time - there is ample confirmation': not that the Peterborough annalist, evidently writing contemporaneously, could well be suspected of being mistaken on so capital a point. Despite the extensive destruction, begun by Huguenots and continued by revolutionaries, of the medieval archives of Saint-Jean d'Angely, ample references can still be found, both in the abbey's surviving cartulary2 and also in outside sources,3 to this Abbot Henry who held office in the early twelfth century. In I I05 he attested a charter of the abbey of Saint- Maixent4; in I I07, according to the Chronicon Besuense, he visited the abbey of Beze as a member of Pope Paschal's train,5 and in the same year he was present when the pope dedicated the great church of La Charite-sur-Loire6; in III 7 certain business of the abbey of Saint-Cybard took place in his presence7; in the same year he wit- nessed a judgment of Girard of Angouleme's in favour of Cluny8; and in II30 he was among those helping the dean of Saintes to investigate a dispute concerning the abbey of Maillezais.9 Further- more, in II23 a Bull from Calixtus II concerning the rights and duties of the abbey of Saint-Jean d'Angely was addressed to Abbot Henry by name.'0

Most important of all, the Angely cartulary offers two documents which together not only help to date Henry's tenure of Angely

cols. 352-3, also xv (Paris, i86o), col. 39 note; L. V. P6cheur, Annales du diocese de Soissons, 2 vols. (Soissons, i863-8),ii. I29; G. Musset, ed., Cartulaire [de Saint-Jean d'Angely], 2 vols. (Paris, 1901-3), ii. pp. xxxvii-xxxix; A. Richard, Histoire des comtes de Poitou 778-I204, 2 vols. (Paris, 1903), ii 25.

i. Gallia ii (Paris, I720), col. iioi, lists this Henry as the sixteenth abbot from the foundation of the abbey, with tenure of it from II03 or I104 until II3I.

2. For this, see Cartulaire, L. 3-8. References to Abbot Henry occur at i. 263, ii.

I37 (2x), 138, 39, 53, 58 (2x), 59, 64, 174, I75 (2x), I82, as well as in the documents discussed below.

3. Apart from the documents cited below, see also Chronicon Sancti Maxentii Picta- vensis, s.a. I09I (P. Marchegay and E. Mabille, eds., Chroniques des eglises d'Anjou (Paris, i869), p. 4IO).

4. A. Richard, ed., Chartes et documents pour servir a l/'bistoire de l'abbaye de Saint-Maixent (Poitiers, I886), p. 241.

5. L. d'Achery, ed., Spicilegium vel collectio veterum aliquot scriptorum, rev. edn., 3 vols. (Paris, 1723), ii. 444.

6. M. Bouquet et alii, eds., Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, 24 vols. (Paris, 1738-I904), XiV. I2I. 7. Gallia, ii, col. I033.

8. A. Bernard and A. Bruel, eds., Recueil des chartes de l'abbaye de Cluny, 6 vols. (Paris, I876-I903), V. 285 (note, however, textual variation).

9. M. l'abbe Lacurie, Histoire de l'abbaye de MailleZais (Fontenay-le-Comte, I852), pp. 248-50 (a piece justificative from the collections of Dom Fonteneau); see also Richard, Histoire des cortes de Poitou, ii. 8. Henry's presence in Poitou at this time confirms the Pet. Chron. statements (pp. 50, 52) that he left England in II28 and did not return until some time in I I30, and counters Orderic's implication that the Angely connection was ended before that with Peterborough began.

io. J. v. Pflugk-Harttung, ed., Acta Pontificum Romanorum Inedita, 3 vols. (Tiibingen, i88I-6), ii. 238-9; also U. Robert, ed., Bullaire du Pape Calixte II, III9-1124, 2 vols. (Paris, I89I), ii. 206-8.



I969 HENRY OF SAINT-JEAN D 'ANGELY 5 5 1

but also check the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's account of this part of his career. The first of these, dated II 04, records how contention between Cluny and the monks of Angely about the succession to Abbot Ansculph had been settled through the good offices of Bishop Rannulf of Saintes and of Count William VII of Poitou ('the Troubadour'), who, acting together on behalf of Cluny, persuaded the monks to elect 'dominum Aenricum, religione et nobilitate insignitum', under promise of a free election next time a vacancy should occur.' This not only gives a date for the beginning of Henry's abbacy but also confirms the Chronicle's statement that 'the count [of Poitou] made him abbot of the abbey of Saint- Jean d'Angely'. The second document gives a terminus ante quem for the end of his abbacy, for, dated in late I13I, it twice names 'Hugo, Angeliacensis eclesix electus in abbatem', nowhere mention- ing the former Abbot Henry.2 This agrees with the Chronicle's statement that Henry had been expelled from Angely at Midsummer of that year:

And on the day after St. John's Day the monks [of Angely] chose an abbot from their own ranks and led him into church with a procession; they sang 'Te Deum', rang the bells, installed him in the abbot's stall and performed towards him all the duties they ought to perform to their abbot. And the count and all the leading men and the monks of the abbey drove the other abbot, Henry, out of that abbey ... 3

But the two stories are related in a puzzling way. For the Angely document describes how William VIII of Poitou ('le Toulousain') did penance and made a donation to the abbey of Saint-Jean in expiation of an armed robbery he had carried out there during the celebrations of the Baptist's Nativity. Both stories can hardly be literally true: if Count William had independently sacked the abbey during the patronal feast, then surely the monks would not have called him in, on the very next day, to help expel their cast-out abbot. Yet Ordericus also speaks of Henry's having been expelled 'a monachis et a Guillelmo, Pictavensi duce'. Probably all the accounts refer to the same events, an incursion of the count's men into the abbey, originally to support the monks but then to plunder on their own account. The Chronicle, concerned only with Abbot Henry, ignores the incidental disorders and makes a slip of one day in the date: the official Angely document, concerned with vindicating the abbey's rights, suppresses the monks' own part in the disorders together with the motive for them.

Although the outlines of Henry of Angely's career are already being illuminated, his personality so far remains obscured in con- ventional phrases such as 'religione et nobilitate insignitum'. Was

I. Cartulaire, i. 398-9. 2. Ibid. i. 270-2.

3. Pet. Chron., s.a. II3I, p. 53.



552 'THIS ECCLESIASTICAL ADVENTURER : July

the Peterborough annalist merely prejudiced against a foreigner (not even a Norman, but, as we shall see, a Burgundian come by way of Poitou), when he spoke of Henry's 'great trickery', of his batten- ing on the abbey as a drone battens on worker bees and of his arrival being signalled by the appearance of the Wild Hunt?' Luckily, there are documents which show the abbot of Angely in less con- ventional guise. Chief among these are letters which Geoffrey of Vendome writes, not only to Henry himself but to Rannulf of Saintes and to William of Poitou as responsible for his election and also to Hugh of Cluny as their common superior, all complain- ing of the injustices he is suffering at the hands of the abbot of Angely, apparently in some territorial dispute between their two houses.2 The letter to Hugh of Cluny is an especially apt pendant to the Chronicle's picture of a hypocrite pretending to be 'unable to endure the great injustice and the great turmoil' prevailing in his own land3: 'compescite domnum illum abbatem', Geoffrey entreats the great abbot of Cluny, 'domnum illum abbatem, quem dicunt homines ex longo tempore fuisse discordie amatorem, seminatorem jurgiorum, pacis perturbatorem.'4 There at least is a characterization the Peterborough annalist would have endorsed; and this will be amplified later on by another letter of Geoffrey's throwing further light on the Chronicle's story.

'As a secular clerk he was bishop of Soissons': for the tenure of the see of Soissons by a Henry at an appropriate time, the evidence, although not so voluminous as for the abbacy of Saint- Jean d'Angely, is beyond question.5 The name appears in various documents,6 including one, describing a transaction at Beauvais 'prx,sente domno Heinrico, tunc episcopo Suessionensi', which is preserved in the Angely cartulary.7

The most important of all the mentions of this Henry of Soissons is in British Museum Additional MS. 8873, an early twelfth-century compilation of what seem to be extracts from papal registers. Here, among entries from the time of Urban II, we find the following story, which the order of the documents seems to date in late io88:

I. Pet. Chron., s.a. I131, pp. 49, 50, 53: p. 49; p. 50. z. Migne, Pat. Lat. clvii, Epist. 111/36, cols. 135-6; IVII, 3, 4, 5, cols. 145-7, 149-

50; V/I9, cols. 20I-2; see also L. Compain, Etude sur Geoffroi de Venddme, Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes: sciences philologiques et historiques lxxxvi (Paris, I89I), pp. 59-60, 68-69, 205-6. Since Rannulf of Saintes was succeeded before II07

by Peter of Soubise (Gallia, ii, col. Io66), the letters to him give a terminus ante quem for this affair. 3. Pet. Chron., s.a. II27, p. 49.

4. Epist. IV/i, cols. I45-7. 5. Gallia, ix, col. 353, lists him as occupying the see from about I087 to 1092; note

that Plummer was thus mistaken in saying (loc. cit) that there was no possible Henry recorded at Soissons.

6. Gallia, loc. cit., mentions several, one of which is printed at x (Instrumenta), col. I03; see also Pecheur, Annales, ii. I25, for further notes and a description of Bishop Henry's seal. 7. Cartulaire, ii. I25, with a suggested date of about I090.



I969 HENRY OF SAINT-JEAN D 'ANG1LY 5 53

Hainricus Suessionensis episcopus Romam sponte veniens, quia a rege Francorum investituram acceperat, iudicio domni pape in ipsius manibus refutavit absque spe recuperationis. Cui postea necessitate exigente ecclesiae, nolenti et recusanti idem episcopatus per domnum Urbanum papam restitutus est, et hoc ipse sacramento astrictus est: Ego Hainricus Suessionensis episcopus ab hac in antea fidelis ero beato Petro et tibi, domne meus papa Urbane, et tuis successoribus canonice intrantibus et Romane ecclesie; legatum huius apostolice sedis cum honore recipiam, quem certum legatum agnoscam, et in suis necessitatibus adiuvabo. Vocatus autem ad sinodumn, aut ad tuam aut legatorum tuorum, veniam nisi prepeditus canonico impedimento. Excommunicatis ab hac sede me sciente non communicabo, consecrationibus eorum, qui investituram recipiunt episcopatuum vel abbatiarum de laica manu me sciente non interero. Sic me Deus adiuvet et hec sancta evangelia.1

There is no direct evidence I know - apart from that of the Anglo- Saxon Chronicle itself - for identifying this Henry of Soissons with Henry of Angely; but as an ironical prologue to such a career of reliance on powerful lay relatives as the latter evidently pursued that oath could hardly be bettered.

'Then he became a monk at Cluny': that the Henry whom Pope Urban had in io88 reinstated in the see of Soissons did become a monk at Cluny is shown by the attestation of a Cluny charter dated 1093 by 'Heinricus olim Suessionensis episcopus, tunc Cluniacensis monachus',2 for there seems to have been no other late eleventh- century bishop of that name at Soissons.

' ... And then prior of that abbey': for a prior of Cluny called Henry at a time that would fit with Henry of Angely's career there is likewise good evidence3 - although none, I think, which directly connects this Prior Henry either with the ex-bishop of Soissons or with the future abbot of Saint-Jean d'Angely. Mentions of this Prior Henry occur in five Cluny charters dated from I IOO to IIO 34

and also in two documents from the Cluniac priory of Marcigny- sur-Loire, both dated II02.5 With so common a name such references are hardly enough for firm identification; but it is at least

i. P. Ewald, 'Die Papstbriefe der Brittischen Sammlung', Neues Archiv, v (i8o8), 360. The same story occurs, in slightly briefer form, in the medieval Liber Pontificalis (L. Duchesne, ed., 3 vols. (Paris, I886-I956), ii. 294); in Bartolomeo Platina's fifteenth- century Vit&2 Pontificum (G. Gaida, ed., Rerum Italicarum Scriptores III/i (Citta di Castello, I913-32), I98); in Scevole and Louis de Sainte-Marthe, Gallia Christiana, 4 vols. (Paris, i656), iii. I049; in Claude Dormay, Histoire de la uille de Soissons, 2 vols. (Soissons, (I663-4), ii. 69-70; in Gallia, ix, col. 353; and, with much sentimental embellishment, in Pecheur, Annales, ii. 124-5.

2. Bernard and Bruel, Recueil, v. 26; compare Gallia, ix, col. 353. 3. M. Chaume, 'Les grands prieurs de Cluny', Revue Mabillon, xxviii (I938), I5I;

Chaume accepts the identification with the later abbot of Saint-Jean d'Angely. See also Gallia, iv, col. i i66. 4. Bernard and Bruel, op. cit. v. 92, 99, I54, I56, I59, 178.

5. J. Richard, ed., Le cartulaire de Marcigny-sur-Loire (o04Y-ss44): essai de reconsti- tution d'un manuscrit disparu (Dijon, I957), 95, I70.



5 54 'THIS ECCLESIASTICAL ADVENTURER : July

compatible with an appointment to Saint-Jean d'Angely in II04

that this Henry was replaced as prior, by the former camerarius Bernard, some time between I I03 and I I05.1

The most interesting reference to a Henry, prior of Cluny, occurs in a document, unfortunately of uncertain date, which shows Hildegarde of Burgundy (Aldeardis, Audearde), widow of Guy-Geoffrey of Poitou and mother of William the Troubadour, making a pious donation to the Cluniac house of Montierneuf at Poitiers, 'adstante ibidem Enrico nepote meo, tunc Priore Cluniaci'.2 Now, the only Prior Henry known to have held office at a compatible time is (unless the several mentions between iIOO

and II03 relate to more than one prior of the same name) the one we have been discussing,3 whom, on the evidence of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, we are tentatively identifying both with the former bishop of Soissons and with the future abbot of Saint- Jean d'Angely. And that abbot, 'nobilitate insignitus' and helped to his abbacy by Hildegarde's son William the Troubadour, is described by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as 'kinsman both to the king of England and to the count of Poitou' and by Ordericus as 'cognatus' of Henry I of England. All this such a connection with Hildegarde of Burgundy as the Montierneuf deed suggests would at first sight seem to explain perfectly.4 For any nephew of Hilde- garde's would have been a second cousin of Henry I of England, since the latter's maternal grandmother Adela was a sister of Hilde- garde's father, Robert of Burgundy.5

But, although both the name Henry and the Cluniac connections are completely in keeping with the traditions of the Burgundian ducal house, matters are not so simple. To begin with, it is not easy to find a place in this family for Henry of Angely.6 And, more important, there is positive evidence which seems to preclude his

i. Chaume, ut supra; Bernard and Bruel, op. cit., v. I83, i88. 2. Gallia, ii, Instrumenta, cols. 3 5 5-6, with the note 'ex chartulario Novi-monasterii';

a modern copy is in the Montierneuf collections of Dom Fonteneau now in the Biblio- theque de la Ville de Poitiers (I am indebted to the Librarian there for supplying me with a photocopy of the relevant page). The same charter was published by J. Besly, Histoire des comtes de Poictou (Paris, I647), p. 394, as 'ex Tabulario sancti Ioannis Anger- iacens.'; but does not occur in the published Angely cartulary. Richard, Histoire des comtes de Poitou, i. 478, dates it II03.

3. Chaume, ut supra. 4. Since Hildegarde was first cousin to Philip I of France, this might also explain

Philip's gift of Soissons. 5. D. C. Douglas and G. W. Greenaway, eds., English Historical Documents I042-II89

(I953), genealogical tables on pp. 983, 998, 999. 6. For the Burgundian ducal house at this time, see E. Petit, Histoire des ducs de

Bourgogne de la race capitienne, 9 vols. (Paris, I885-1905), genealogical table facing ix. 5I2 (superseding that at i. 5I5, see ix. 505-6); also J. Richard, 'Sur les alliances familiales des ducs de Bourgogne au xiie et xiiie si,cles', Annales de Bourgogne, xxx (I95 8), 37-46 (compare Chaume, 'Les alliances des ducs et des comtes de Bourgogne au xie siecle', AnnalesdeBourgogne, xix(I 947), 73). Hildegardehad one sister, Constance, andfourbrothers,



I969 HENRY OF SAINT-JEAN D ANGALY 5 5 5

being Hildegarde's 'nepos' except in a very elastic sense. An early twelfth-century charter from Citeaux, not dated but possibly be- longing after I I25, contains the following passage:

Notum esse volo omnibus ... quod ego Haynricus angeliacensis servus indignus, terram super fluvium Segunnam in bisuntino territorio sitam, que Tentenens appellatur, michi a fratre meo Hugone filioque ejus Gerardo donata est . . .1

From the situation of the land in question, Toutenant (dep. Saone-et- Loire), and from other references to it in this collection of documents,2 it appears that the Hugo and his son Gerard mentioned here were lords of Pouilly-sur-Sa6ne (dep. C6te d'Or), which, lying just above the confluence of the Saone and the Doubs, was then an important stronghold on the frontier of the two Burgundies. If, then, there is any connection between Henry of Angely, brother of Hugo of Pouilly-sur-Saone, and the Burgundian ducal house, it should come from the eleventh-century alliances of the castellans of Pouilly-sur-Saone; but about these alliances nothing, unfortunately, is known. Hugo of Pouilly-sur-Saone, however, married a daughter of the heiress Elizabeth of Vergy, who, it has been suggested,3 may have been married not only to Savary of Donzy/Ch'atel- Censoir but also to Simon of Burgundy, Hildegarde's half-brother; and that would give a link, if a remote one, between Henry of Pouilly-sur-Saone, abbot of Saint-Jean d'Angely, and Hildegarde, countess of Poitou.4 Furthermore, the domain of Pouilly-sur-Saone itself had, before coming into the hands of this family, originally been part of the ducal domain.5

'. . . And then he became prior at Sauenni': a further problem arises with the next episode in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's account

Hugo, Henry, Robert and Simon. Hugo apparently died unmarried. Robert married a daughter of Roger of Sicily, but no children of thismarriage seemrecorded (see F. Chalan- don, Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile, 2 vols. (Paris, I 907), i. 3 5 6-7). Of Simon's career nothing seems known (but compare infra). Constance married first Hugo II of Chalon-sur-Sa6ne, who died without heirs in 1078 (J. Richard, 'Origines f6odales', Annales de Bourgogne, xviii (I 946), x I 5), then Alphonso of Castille. Henry, whose sons Hugo and Eudes succeeded to the duchy, did have a soncalledHenry, butthelatter's marriage into the royal family of Castille and his career as count of Portugal are well attested.

i. J. Marilier, ed., Chartes et documents concernant /'abbaye de Citeaux, i098-II2

(Rome, I96I), no. 84 (pp. 89-go), compare also nos. 89 (p. 9I), I75 (p. 141), and 250 (p. 20I) [GC]. I am much indebted to M. l'abbe Marilier for his generous help in elucidating the genealogical implications of this passage; the following discussion is largely based on information and suggestions offered by him in private correspondence.

2. Ibid. nos. 93 (p. 95), I07 (p. IoI), II2/ii (p. I04), and I2I (p. I09). 3. By M. l'abbd Marilier in a private letter to me. 4. M. l'abbe Mafilier has further suggested that reliance on a Vergy connection

would also help to explain the appointment to Soissons, as that see had often been occupied by relatives of that family.

5. J. Richard, Les ducs de Bourgogne et la formation du duche du xi au xivB si cle (Paris, I954), pp. 47-48, II9, I28, I43.



5 5 6 'THIS ECCLESIASTICAL ADVENTURER : July

of Henry's career, his alleged priorate at Sauenni, for the very place- name is ambiguous. And the parallel Latin version of Hugo Candidus affords no help, as it simply reproduces the vernacular forms of this and other place-names.

Some identifications, such as Savenay (dep. Loire-Atlantique) and the most famous Savigny (dep. Manche), are out of the question because of various incompatibilities, including date.' The more ancient abbey at Savigny in the Lyonnais (dep. Rhone), with a history going back to the ninth century at least, might seem more possible; but again there seems no record of any Henry as prior there at this time.2 Besides, in view of Henry's assumed career, first as monk and prior of Cluny, then as abbot at the Cluniac house of Saint-Jean d'Angely, this other appointment might also be expected to be to a Cluniac dependency. And in fact, the great priory of Souvigny (Silviniacum, dep. Allier),3 one of the five 'daugh- ters' of Cluny, did have a prior called Henry from late in I095 until some time before I I00.4 Furthermore, the fifteenth-century obituar- ium from Souvigny now preserved in the Bibliotheque Municipale at Moulins (dep. Allier) contains, under January, the following note implying some connection between Souvigny and Henry of Angely:

VI Idus. Officium fiat plenum pro domino Heynrico condam abbate sancti Johanis Angeliacensis, qui operatoria adquisivit que sunt ante portam ecclesie et septuaginta sepias [or sepia] ad refectionem fratrum de conventu.5

This reference may allow us to conjecture that the Prior Henry at Souvigny in the closing years of the eleventh century was indeed the future abbot of Saint-Jean d'Angely. If so, then the Anglo-Saxon

i. Savigny was not founded until II05 at the earliest. As for Savenay (suggested by Le Prevost, op. cit. iv. 429), one of the two religious houses there was an Augustinian priory and the other Franciscan and not founded until 14I9 (J-M. Besse (Beaunier), Abbayes etprieurls de I'ancienneFrance, viii (Ligug6 and Paris, 1920), pp. 214 and 250, 246).

2. Gallia, iv, cols. 259 et seq., gives no list of priors; A. Bernard, ed., Cartulaire de l'abbaye de Savigny, 2 vols. (Paris, I853), nowhere mentions a possible Henry, but early twelfth-century documents from here are so scarce that there is doubt even about the abbots of this period (i, pp. lxxxvii-lxxxix).

3. Dr. P. Rickard, of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, has kindly assured me that the Pet. Chron. form Sauenni could equally well represent Sabiniacum or Silviniacum.

4. Leon C6te, Contributions a l'histoire du prieure clunisien de Souvigny (Moulins, I942),

pp. 127, also 38, 39. When Gallia, ix, col. 353 (the Soissons article) speaks of Henry as 'prior ... Silviniacensis', the source is apparently only an emendation suggested for the corrupt reading in the Swaffham text of Hugo Candidus (see Clement Reyner, Apos- tolatus Benedictinorum in Anglia (Douai, I626), Appendix III, Scriptura lxiv, pp. 14I-2).

5. Moulins MS. -I3 (see A. Molinier, Les obituairesfranfais au moyen dge (Paris I 890),

p. 246); as I have been unable to consult M. Fazy, ed., Le livre des anniversaires du prieure de Souvigny (? Collection des 'Curiosites Bourbonnaises', some time between I935

and I942), I am grateful to the Librarian at Moulins for very kindly verifying this passage. Gallia, ii, col. IIOI, cited it simply as 'in libro anniversariorum Salviniaci', and Musset, Cartulaire, ii, p. xxxix, quoted it from there with no further attempt at identification.



i969 HENRY OF SAINT-JEAN D 'ANGILY 5 57

Chronicle, although it has its facts right, has set them down out of order: the priorate at Souvigny preceded that at Cluny.

'Then, through his great trickery, he obtained the archbishopric of Besangon': for the alleged abortive election to Besangon, given as the next episode in Henry's career after his appointment to Angely, evidence is totally lacking. There was, however, a pro- longed vacancy at that see, between the death of Archbishop Pontius in iio8 and the election of William of Arguel in IIO9,

during which time it was in the custody of Archbishop Guy of Vienne (afterwards Pope Calixtus II); an attempt on Besangon at this time would fit well with the rest of Henry's career. And he may not have been without influence in the district: his Pouilly-sur- Saone connections give him a footing 'in bisuntino territorio'; and the reigning duke of Burgundy, Hugo II, with whom he could presumably have claimed a distant connection, was a son of Sibylla of Bourgogne-Comte'. But evidence clearly connecting Henry of Angely with Besangon, whether at this time or at any other, has yet to be found.2

'Then he obtained the bishopric of Saintes': for this second alleged election, to Saintes, direct evidence is likewise lacking. The abbot of Saint-Jean d'Angely did, however, according to the Bull of Calixtus II already mentioned, enjoy a special position during a vacancy at Saintes:

Porro abbas in matrice Santonensi ecclesia, episcopo obeunte, cum decanis et archidiaconis primum locum habiturus in electione, et, dum episcopus defunctus vel absens fuerit, cum predictis personis ecclesia in eius providentia remanebit.3

There is, moreover, a scrap of evidence that Henry himself had, some dozen years before the issue of this Bull in II23, taken rather too close an interest in the affairs of this see. In an accusatory letter written by Geoffrey of Vendome to Girard of Angouleme about III 3 one of the charges is: Abbati Angeriacensi, ut dicitur, promisistis, quod si trecentos solidos Pictavensium masculorum vobis daret, Rainaldum Chesnelli deponeretis: unde capitula, quibus illum accusaret, ei transcripta misistis;4

i. J. Richard, Annales de Bourgogne, xxx, 3 8-4I . 2. Gallia, xv, cOl. 39 note, expressly denies any connection at all between Henry of

Angely and the see of Besancon even for the alleged three days; see also xvi (Paris, I89I), col. 26. Nor is there any reference at all to him in the histories of Besangon by Dunod de Charnage (Besangon, I750) and Loye (Besangon, I90I-3), or in M. Nie- wiesch's study of the archbishops there (Diss. Breslau, I937), or in U. Robert, Histoire de Pape Calixte II (Paris, I89I).

3. Pflugk-Harttung, loc. cit.; see also P. Imbart de la Tour, Les 6lections ipiscopales dans /'dglise de France du ixe au xiiI sikle (Paris, I 89I), p. 5 I9.

4. Migne, Pat. Lat. clvii, col. 65, also Gallia, ii, col. 997. See also M. l'abbe Maratu, Girard, iv6que d'Angoul/me (Angouleme, I866), pp. 100-02; Compain, Etude, pp. 228-9



5 58 'THIS ECCLESIASTICAL ADVENTURER : July

and Geoffrey adds that the abbot in question takes God as his witness to the truth of this. Now Rainaldus 'Chesnelli', 'Chesnellus', or 'Chainel', we know to have been a canon at Saintes during the episcopates of Rannulf (ob. I107) and of his successor, Peter of Soubise.1 And the immediate successor of Peter of Soubise in the see of Saintes was also a Rainaldus, who held office for an uncertain period beginning about i i i i and ending some time before II 17 and who has been credited with the cognomen 'Carsalius'.2 This Rainaldus 'Carsalius' of Saintes some nineteenth-century scholars did tentatively identify with the other Rainaldus, 'Chesnellus'.3 And if this identification were tenable, then Geoffrey of Vendome's charge would provide a most suggestive link between Henry of Angely and the see of Saintes. Furthermore, apart from the un- certainty which seems to obtain about the date at which Rainaldus of Saintes gave place to his successor, there is good evidence for trouble in his time. For in the mortuary roll of Matilda, abbess of La Trinite-de-Caen, who died in I1 13, a monk of Saint-Vivien at Saintes entered the following verses:

Sed cum diffamet monachos genus omne malorum, Illos precipue malus ambitus inflat honorum; Pontificatus enim demonstrat Sanctonicensis, Quem voluit rapere vesania Clun.iacensis. Petro defuncto, non parve religionis, Et posito super etherx sedem regionis, Nascitur in clero cunctos qux quxstio turbat: Quis sit Sanctonicx successor episcopus urbis ? Tandem consilio convenit clerus in unum, Eligit et de carnonicis commun.iter unum, In quo tanta quidem morum pollebat honestas, Ut nil deesset ei quod amaret tanta potestas. De quo quam monachi fecerunt perditionem, In populo magnam simulantes religionem, Dicere non possum, jam rolligero properante. Lectori nunc sufficiant qux diximus ante.4

(with a tentative dating at p. 228 n. 2); and Hubert Claude, 'Un 1egat pontifical, ad- versaire de saint Bernard, Girard d'Angouleme', Bulletin de la Socilti bistorique et arche'o- logique de Langres, xii (195 3), 140, 147 (Claude does not consider Geoffrey's letter good evidence).

I. In the former's time his name appears at least twice in legal documents (Cholet, ed., Cartulaire de Saint-Etienne de Baigne (Niort, I868), pp. 35, 98; compare Maratu, op. cit., pp. 83-84 note), and in the latter's he drew Geoffrey of Vend6me's censure by engaging in a judicial duel with a monk of Vend6me (Migne, op. cit., cols. 138-41;

compare Compain, Etude, 208, and Maratu, loc. cit.). 2. Sc6vole and Louis de Sainte-Marthe, Gallia Cbristiana, iii. 98I, also Gallia, ii,

98I. For references to Bishop Rainaldus, see Bouquet, Recueil, xiv. 525, and Cholet, op. cit. pp. 6, 12, 24.

3. E.g. Bouquet, Recueil, xv. 289, and Maratu, loc. cit.; Compain, Etude, p. 229, n. 3, quotes this identification without comment.

4. L. Delisle, Rouleaux des morts du ix, au xv siicle (Paris, i 866), p. 24I [GC].



I969 HENRY OF SAINT-JEAN D 'ANGELY 5 59

The account is, no doubt intentionally, vague; but the dates agree, the persecuted bishop was, like Rainaldus 'Chesnellus', a former canon of the cathedrai, and the plot against him is attributed to Cluniac greed, such as could well have been personified in the abbot of Saint-Jean d'Angely. Taken together with Geoffrey of Vendome's letter to Girard of Angouleme, these verses suggest that Henry of Angely may well have conspired to depose Rainaldus of Saintes and that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle may not be all that wide of the mark in saying that he himseif briefly occupied that see.

So far, then, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle's account of Henry of Angely's career seems accurate enough, considering that it was based on hearsay of events stretching back over nearly forty years: the priorate at Souvigny is listed out of order, and the Besangon episode, although not impossible, remains unconfirmed; otherwise the Chronicle's evidence agrees admirably with that of independent continental sources. This reliability concerning events far-off in time as well as in place strengthens our trust in the chronicler's veracity about the contemporary ones of which his is the only record extant.

For, unlike the continental episodes, the English parts of Henry of Angely's career find practically no independent confimation. No independent source mentions his appointment as legate to England in II 2 3, or even any legate at all playing the part attributed to Henry in the archiepiscopal election of that year.' It may seem odd that ours should be the only chronicle to mention this, especially as there is no sign that at the time of writing the annalist was aware of the role Henry of Angely was later to play at Peterborough (indeed, his tone under II 23 is sympathetic to Henry and his point of view); but it is surely to the chronicler's credit rather than the reverse. Moreover, this II23 appointment is made more plausible by Hugh the Chantor's mention of 'dominus Angliacensis abbas' as papal messenger to Ralph of Canterbury in II 19.2

As for the Peterborough adventure, that seems to have passed unnoticed, except for Orderic's brief reference to it. Nor is there any independent record of the related visit to England said to have been made by Peter the Venerable in II30, when, according to the Chronicle, 'wherever he went he was received with great honour'.3 Peter the Venerable himself however, mentions, in a letter to Henry of Blois, then bishop of Winchester, an undated visit to England4; and this could have been in I I 0o.

1. Apart from the writers mentioned in note 5 above, I have consulted C. Johnson, ed., Hugh the Chantor; History of the Church of York I066-II27 (i96i), P. Jaff9, Regesta Pontificum Romanorum (2nd edn., Leipzig, i885-8), T. Schieffer, Die Papstlichen Legaten in Frankreich 870-ii30 (Berlin, 195 3), and H. Tillmann, Die Pdpstlichen Legaten in England bis zur Beendigung der Legation Gualas (1218) (Bonn, I926); the last does mention Henry's appointment (p. 27), but apparently on the sole authority of Pet. Chron.

2. Hugh the Chantor, p. 63 [GCq. 3. Pet. Chron., s.a. 1130, p. 52. 4. Giles Constable, ed., The Letters of Peter the Venerable, 2 vols. (Harvard Historical



560 'THIS ECCLESIASTICAL ADVENTURER': July

Similarly, although the depredations the chronicler attributes to the pluralist abbot' cannot be confirmed from any of the surviving estate records of Peterborough Abbey,2 nevertheless the more precise language Hugo Candidus uses at this point, 'accepit homa- gium et pecuniam de militibus et de tota abbacia et nichil boni ibi fecit, set totum misit et portauit ad abbaciam suam',3 seems to lend some credibility to the story. Indeed, in spite of his evident depend- ence on a vernacular source similar to our Chronicle (seen, for instance, in such points as his retention of vernacular forms for the place-names Angeli, Cluni, Sauenni, Besenscun, Seintes), Hugo Candid- us sometimes offers extra details which suggest that his sources were fuller than the extant Chronicle text. This is marked in the account of Henry's final departure from Peterborough, which in the Chron- icle appears not in a contemporary entry but in the Final Contin- uation added in I 1 5 4.4 Where the Chronicle says that Henry 'wanted his nephew to succeed him as abbot at Peterborough', Hugo adds the name 'Gerardus'5: a name which may well be authentic, for the Toutenant charter shows Henry of Pouilly-sur-Saone to have had not only the nephew Gerard who was a layman and lord of Pouilly- sur-Saone but also another who was apparently a monk, since he attests the charter as 'frater Girardus nepos illius abbatis'.6 Hugo's most substantial addition is the last one. Whereas the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle closes the episode with Henry's departure from England, Hugo goes on to tell how he died, evidently in better odour than he had lived:

Abbas autem Henricus cum suis mare transiuit et iterum abbaciam suam de Angeli recuperauit. Quicquid tamen fecit, bonus elemosinator omnibus diebus fuit, et ideo sicut dictum est bonum finem fecit. Nam non diu postquam ibi uenit uixit.7

Newnham College, Cambridge CE C I LY CLA R K8

Studies lxxviii, I967), 1. 150: 'me anno praterito per multum temporis in Anglia morante.' Henry of Blois was appointed to Winchester in II 29 (Pet. Chron., s.a., p. 5I).

I. Pet. Chron., s.a. 1127, p. 49. 2. For this information I am grateful to Dr. Edmund King, of Sheffield University,

who is making a study of the Peterborough estates; he points out, however, that for this period records independent of Pet. Chron. are almost non-existent.

3. Hugh Candidus,p. IOI. 4. Pet. Chron.,s.a. II32, p. 54. 5. Hugh Candidus,p. 103.

6. Manlier, op. cit. p. go. Whether this Gerard was a monk at Saint-Jean d'Angely we cannot tell; at all events no 'Gerardus monachus' is mentioned in any document of the right period preserved in the published cartulary.

7. Hugh Candidus, p. I04; compare the obits quoted in Gallia, ii, col. ioi. 8. This article is based on a paper read in January I968 to the Cambridge Medieval

Group, and I should like to thank the many members of the Group who by their en- couragement and advice have contributed to this study. In particular I am deeply indebted to Professor C. R. Cheney for the extremely generous and valuable help which he gave me at the outset of the investigation and without which I should never have been able to undertake it at all. I also owe a special debt to Professor Giles Con- stable, of Harvard University, who not only read and criticized an early draft of this article but also gave me a great deal of bibliographical advice including the important references marked with his initials in the notes above.

