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Guerre et société en France, en Angleterre et en Bourgogne xive-xve siècle

 | 
H. Maurice Keen
, 
Charles Giry-Deloison
, 
Philippe Contamine

The Anglo-French Wars, 1294-1340: Allies and Alliances

Malcolm G. A. Vale

Texto completo

  • 1 G. L. Harriss, King Parliament and Public Finance in Medieval England to 1369, Oxford, 1975, p. 23 (...)
  • 2 M. McKisack, The Fourteenth Century, Oxford, 1959, p. 149.

1I begin with a question: why did both Edward I and Edward III of England spend so much time and money recruiting allies and mercenaries among the nobility of the Low Countries and the franco-imperial borderlands during their French wars? Between 1294 and 1298 and, again, from 1336 to 1340 the Plantagenet war effort against France depended heavily upon these allies and hired troops. In the event, both episodes ended in military stalemate and financial crisis. ‘Edward III’s war effort’, argues Dr G.L. Harriss, ‘as intensive as it was futile, proved to be a political catalyst’ and Professor Michael Prestwich concludes that ‘Edward could show little save empty coffers as his achievement’.1 Professor May McKisack was a little more tolerant of Edward’s failings: ‘in the opening years of the French war’, she wrote, ‘his strategy was intelligible and, on the face of it, intelligent’.2 The alliances were designed to compensate for English inferiority in manpower, and to create a bridgehead into France from the north-east of the kingdom and on its northern and eastern frontiers. Flemish and other Netherlandish towns – in Brabant and Hainaut, already bound by economic and dynastic interests to England – were also recruited to the alliance. But it was above all to the princes and nobles of the franco-imperial borderlands that both Edward I and Edward III turned for military support. The nobility of the regions that lay between the Scheldt, the Meuse and the Rhine had long been noted for their military and chivalric prowess. These border areas were host to many tournaments, and feuding, peace-breaking and private war were commonplace. Flemings, Brabançons, Hainauters, Lorrainers and Rhinelanders had been the objects of recruiting efforts by princes since at least the later twelfth century. In a war against France the geographical location of their lands and their extensive network of feudal and dynastic relationships could be used to good effect. For the Plantagenets, they were part of a traditional pattern of alliance against France dating back to the reigns of Richard I and John. For the Dampierre counts of Flanders, the nobiles Alemanni also furnished much-needed military support in their conflict with the French.

  • 3 F. M. Powicke, Henry III and the Lord Edward, t. I, Oxford, 1947, p. 244; F. R. Lewis, «Beatrice o (...)
  • 4 F. R. Lewis, art. cit., p. 180, and his article «Ottokar II of Bohemia and the double election of (...)
  • 5 Annales de Osneia, ed. H. R. Luard, in Annales monastici, London, 1864-1869, t. IV, pp. 223-224; F (...)
  • 6 S. H. Steinberg, «A portrait of Beatrice of Falkenburg», Antiquaries Journal, t. XVIII (1938), pp. (...)

2Relations between the princes and nobles of the franco-imperial marches and the Plantagenets were determined by three principal factors: dynastic connections; the demand for military service; and the need for diplomatic intermediaries with the princes of the Low Countries and the German Empire. Dynastic relationships were already forming before the reign of Edward I. In 1269 Richard of Cornwall, titular king of the Romans, married for the third time.3 As brother to Henry III of England, he might have been expected to marry into one of the great royal or princely houses of Europe. Instead, he chose Béatrix, daughter of Thierry II, lord of Montjoie and Fauquemont (Falkenberg) bettveen Maastricht and Aachen on the borders of the Liègeois and Limbourg, a girl of outstanding beauty. She was no doubt the solace of his old age. Her father had been one of his foremost supporters during the election contest gor the German kingdom in May 1257.4 Richard of Cornwall was 59 years of age in 1269; his new wife was a young woman, described by an English chronicler as a gemma mulierum (‘a jewel’). Their marriage lasted only three years, for Richard died in 1272 and she survived him only by five years, to be buried in the Franciscan convent he had founded at Oxford.5 A surviving stained-glass panel depicts her crowned as queen of Germany and is the earliest representation of a donor in English glass. She kneels in prayer wearing a robe decorated heraldically with red and black bands, while the eagle of the German kingdom appears in a series of roundels set into the blue ground of the glass. With the silver-gilt sceptre, topped in the English manner by a dove, which he gave to Aachen cathedral in 1262, this piece of glass is one of the very few surviving legacies from Richard of Cornwall’s kingship of the Romans.6 There were no children of his third marriage.

  • 7 F. M. Powicke, op. cit., pp. 236-246; The Thirteenth Century, 1216-1307, Oxford, 1954, pp. 120-122
  • 8 Below, nn. 30-34.

3Yet the short-lived alliance with the Fauquemont was not without effect. By marrying into the nobility of the franco-imperial borderland, the house of Plantagenet may have expressed its desire for involvement in the confused politics of the Empire after the collapse of the Hohenstaufen between 1254 and 1268.7 A re-orientation of English ‘foreign’ policy can be identified at this time, especially as a result of the erosion of Plantagenet dominions in France since 1204 and the settlement reached with Louis IX at Paris in 1259. The vacuum in imperial politics had to be filled and Richard of Cornwall’s election was one means of asserting Plantagenet claims to a European status equivalent to that of the Capetians. The Fauquemont were in no sense a leading princely house of the West, but their position and, as we shall see, their rôle in franco-imperial politics was important.8 They could bring not only their own military and diplomatic resources, but those of ther nobles, to serve the Plantagenet cause at times of crisis. The 1290s were to be such a time; and so were the late 1330s.

  • 9 F. M. Powicke, Thirteenth Century, p. 268; J. de Sturler, Les relations politiques et les échanges (...)
  • 10 H. S. Lucas, The Low Countries and the Hundred Years War, 1326-1347, Ann Arbor, 1929, repr. 1976, (...)
  • 11 H. S. Lucas, op. cit., pp. 14-15; L. Galesloot, Le livre des feudataires de Jean III, duc de Braba (...)

4An increased Plantagenet awareness of the value of alliances with the ruling dynasties of the Low Countries and the Rhineland is apparent in the later years of Edward I (1272-1307). In 1290, his daughter Margaret was married to the future Jean II, duke of Brabant who, with claims to the duchy of Lotharingia, was potentially of great value to Edward.9 He spent much of the period before his accession in 1294 in Edward’s household. The ability of the dukes of Brabant to exercise influence in the franco-imperial borderlands and the pays d’Outre-Meuse was greatly enhanced by their acquisition of Limburg after their defeat of the duke of Guelders and the count of Luxembourg at the battle of Worringen, near Cologne, in 1288.10 Edward I had supported Jean I of Brabant during that war, and this was the beginning of an alliance which was to last until after the outbreak of the Hundred Years War. The dukes of Brabant were potentially able to call on the services of some 3,000 vassals who owed them military service, and access to this great reservoir of support was clearly very attractive to both Edward I and his grandson Edward III.11

  • 12 F. M. Powicke, Thirteenth Century, pp. 264, 668; for her dowry, see P.R.O., C.47/27/3, No. 4 (Apri (...)
  • 13 PRO., S.C.1/15, No. 8.
  • 14 See, most recently, W. M. Ormrod, «Edward III and his Family», Journal of British Studies, t. XXVI (...)

5Further marriage alliances were contracted at this time with Flanders, Bar and Holland. The betrothal of Edward I’s daughter Eleanor to Henri, count of Bar, in 1293 forged further connections with the lands on each side of the Meuse.12 Edward had already established friendly relations with Thibaut II, count of Bar, in the 1270s and in 1276, for example, found benefices for Thibaut’s three cadet sons, who were clerks, and for whom he could provide no preferment within his own lands.13 Edward’s proposed marriage alliance with Flanders, of course, came to nothing, but he was more successful with Holland. Edward III was to resume some of these Netherlandish and Rhineland connections through his own marriage to Philippa of Hainaut and his daughter Eleanor’s to Reginald, duke of Guelders. England had therefore become a major contender in the competition for heirs and heiresses from these rich and prosperous territories.14

  • 15 See F. M. Powicke, Thirteenth Century, pp. 246-247.
  • 16 See B. D. Lyon, From Fief to Indenture: the transition from feudal to non-feudal contract in Weste (...)
  • 17 H. S. Lucas, op. cit., p. 328-367; E. Déprez, Les Préliminaires de la Guerre de Cent Ans, 1328-134 (...)
  • 18 Cf. G. Barraclough, «Edward I and Adolf of Nassau: a chapter of medieval diplomatic history», CHJ,(...)
  • 19 For comparisons between the alliances, particularly from the financial point of view, see E. B. Fr (...)
  • 20 F. Trautz, op. cit., pp. 275-278; H. S. Offler, «England and Germany at the beginning of the Hundr (...)
  • 21 H. S. Offler, art. cit., pp. 611-612; F. Trautz, op. cit., pp. 274-275.
  • 22 H. S. Offler, art. cit., pp. 612, 615. For French intervention on the imperial frontiers at an ear (...)

6What purposes did these alliances, not only with the princely houses of these regions, but with lesser noble families serve? How were they secured? Firstly, they were a means of putting pressure upon France. A coalition of encirclement could be built up around the Capetians and the first Valois.15 This was the Plantagenets’ plan in 1294 and in 1337-1340. Under Edward I, nobles from Brabant, Limburg, Bar, Alsace, Lorraine, the Franche-Comté (i.e. comital Burgundy) and Savoy were recruited to serve in war. Existing relationships with the ruling dynasties of these regions could be exploited so that bridgeheads for attack upon France might be created. After their loss of Normandy to Philip Augustus in 1204, the Plantagenets were gravely hampered in their attempts to mount campaigns in Northern France. It was from the North-East that invasion came in 1214 before the defeat at Bouvines.16 It was from the North-East that Edward III, with a firm basis of support in Hainaut and an imperial title, was to attempt his first attack on France in 1338-1340.17 Under Edward I, it has been argued that the alliance with the Empire of August 1294 was crucial to English war aims. But it is uncertain how far the contracts made with imperial vassals, often through the count of Flanders or Duke of Brabant, depended upon Edward’s pact with Adolf of Nassau.18 There was a fundamental difference in this respect between the Anglo-imperial alliances of 1294 and 1338.19 Edward I held no imperial title; whereas Edward III was created vicar-general of the Empire by Louis of Bavaria in September 1338.20 The terms of Edward’s vicariate were revealing of both Plantagenet and imperial aims. He was to act per Alemanniam et Galliam et universas earum provincias sive partes (‘throughout Alemannia and Gallia and through all their provinces and regions’).21 As Professor Offler rightly observed, Edward’s powers as vicar over imperial lands to the west of the Rhine (i.e. in Gallia) ‘which had suffered from French aggression’ was ‘a valuable indication of the connection of his title with a German policy of revendication of imperial rights in the West’.22 The imperial vicariate could therefore be used to resist French encroachment upon imperial lands, just as Edward’s assumption of the title to the throne of France in 1340 was intended to prevent further Valois intervention – through the hearing of appeals and granting of sauve-gardes and paréages – in his own duchy of Aquitaine.

  • 23 G. Barraclough, art. cit., p. 245.
  • 24 F. Funck-Brentano, Les Origines de la Guerre de Cent ans, Philippe le Bel en Flandre, Paris, 1897, (...)

7But under Edward I the situation was different. Professor Barraclough believed that Edward’s alliance with Adolf of Nassau was ‘the keystone in England’s continental system.’ This was because the Netherlandish, Lorrainer and Burgundian nobles ‘would not dare to move [against Francej unless assured of support and leadership in the rear’ from the Empire.23 It is unlikely, given the internal problems which he faced and did little to resolve, that Adolf of Nassau would have been able to provide that support and leadership in 1294. I suspect that Funck-Brentano’s conclusion was correct, namely that the forces raised against France by Edward I and by Guy de Dampierre, count of Flanders (1278-1305), were not sent by Adolf. They were ‘plus vraisemblablement recrutés par Waléran de Valkenburg (Fauquemont), Jean de Cuyck, Henri de Blâmont, Guillaume de Juliers et autres chevaliers des marches d’Empire, à la solde du roi d’Angleterre.’24 It is now necessary to examine the activities of some of these nobles and the means whereby their services were secured.

  • 25 See M. Sczaniecki, Essai sur les fiefs-rentes, Paris, 1946, pp. 5-34; B. D. Lyon, op. cit., pp. 18 (...)
  • 26 For some examples see Rotuli de Misis, Record Commission, 1844, pp. 240-242 (1213); Rotuli Littera (...)
  • 27 B. D. Lyon, op. cit., pp. 46-47, 230-232.
  • 28 See R. Cazelles, «Quelques réflexions à propos des mutations de la monnaie royale (1295-1360)», Le (...)
  • 29 B. D. Lyon, op. cit., p. 38, where a ‘sharp differentiation’ between ‘feudal and non-feudal elemen (...)

8Professor Bryce Lyon demonstrated that to recruit and retain military service at this time there was a distinct preference for the fief-rente25. Precedents had been created for their use during the conflicts of Richard Coeur-de-Lion and Jean Sans Terre with Philip Augustus. Between 1212 and 1216, for example, John had granted at least 173 fiefs-rentes to Netherlandish, Limbourgois, Barrois and Rhenish nobles.26 These devices normally required homage, sometimes performed by proxy, and were normally for fixed terms of military service. Money fiefs possessed certain practical advantages for both lord and man over grants of land. They accommodated multiple loyalties, and allowed exceptions to be made in favour of overlords or of the parties to pre-existing contracts; they provided valuable supplements in liquid capital to nobles’ incomes while, for the grantor, they gave access to military service from the vassals of those recruited by means of a fief-rente.27 It may be no coincidence that (according to Lyon) their greatest proliferation occurred between 1290 and 1340. This was not only a reflection of the need to mobilise support at periods of crisis, but of the economic problems which were already besetting the nobility. Fluctuations in seigneurial revenues, especially from land, and the damaging effects on noble incomes of monetary inflation and currency debasement, must be taken into account in any discussion of the dissemination of the fief-rente and its variations in North-West Europe.28 Lastly, but most importantly, the money fief could create a so-called ‘feudal’ obligation to serve in war, peace and tournament. It was in many ways the continental equivalent of the retaining fee or contract of English ‘bastard feudalism’.29

  • 30 J. Bretel, Le Tournoi de Chauvency, ed. M. Delbouille, Liège, Paris, 1932,11. 3812-3813; J. Vale, (...)
  • 31 Edmond de Dynter, Chronique des ducs de Brabant, pp. 715-722, and J. Bertholet, Histoire ecclésias (...)
  • 32 Annales Gandenses, p. 3; F. Funck-Brentano, op. cit., pp. 243-244. For the Fauquemonts’ accumulati (...)
  • 33 Foedera, t. II, ii, p. 992. He claimed that he had lost his horses in Nov. 1339 and demanded £600 (...)
  • 34 F. Bock, «An unknown register of the reign of Edward III», EHR, t. XIV (1930), p. 366; H. S. Offle (...)
  • 35 PRO., C.81/No. 13518; E. Déprez, op. cit., p. 357, n. 1. See also The Wardrobe Book of William de (...)
  • 36 For Edward’s financial plight at this time see E. B. Fryde, William de la Pole, Merchant and King’ (...)

9The operation of the fief-rente among the nobility of the franco-imperial borderlands can be observed between 1294 and 1302, and again between 1337-1340. Some examples may suffice: those of Waléran and Thierry de Fauquemont, Henri de Blâmont, and Jean and Odo de Cuyck. Waléran, lord of Montjoie and Fauquemont, brother of Beatrix de Fauquemont, vassal (for his Limbourgois lands) of the count of Luxembourg, was a member of the dehors side (‘outside’ or ‘away’ team) at the great tournament held by the count and countess of Chiny at Chauvency in October 1285.30 Known as ‘le Roux’, he fought for the duke of Guelders against Jean I de Brabant at Worringen in 1288, and was described in Edmond de Dynter’s Chronique des ducs de Brabant as ‘Waleran de Valkenbourg le noble de Limbourgh’. He was captured by the Brabanters and seems to have made his peace with Jean I de Brabant after the payment by his surety, Guy de Dampierre, count of Flanders of a fine imp osed upon him.31 The author of the Annales Gandenses described him as ‘probissimus miles’ (‘a most excellent knight’), and he served the counts of Flanders, with many other Alemannis nobilibus, in the wars of 1297-1305.32 His large collection of fiefs-rentes from at least five lords made him the secular equivalent of an ecclesiastical pluralist. Edward III of England was to make use of his grandson’s services in the late 1330s. On 26 August 1337, Thierry, lord of Fauquemont was retained with 100 hommes d’armes at a fee of 1,200 florins per annum for life. He was also to be given a further very large sum of 12,000 florins in two instalments, plus wages for war. The king agreed to ransom him and his retinue if they were captured, and to compensate him for lost warhorses.33 These were exceedingly generous terms. On 20 November 1338, Edward (as imperial vicar) summoned him from Antwerp ‘de venendo cum arma potencia in auxilium vicarii pro juribus imperii recuperandis’, (‘to come with force of arms to aid the vicarius in the recovery of imperial rights’).34 But Edward had not reckoned with the acute financial problems which were ultimately to ruin his schemes. Thierry de Fauquemont was demanding payment of outstanding debts in cash and, in a letter written at Ghent on 12th November 1340, Edward angrily rebuked his officials in England for refusing to satisfy his ally.35 He had demanded £4,500 in wool or cash but there was no way of paying this sum. The Chancellor and Treasurer of England had behaved rudely towards him and had given a ‘respons si court et desplesant, a ce que nous avons entendu, qe lavant dit seignur de Faukemont se tient malpaiez et est quantment esmuz, sur qoi il nous escript molt asprement et requis derechief qu nous lui faceons paiement de ce qe nous lui devons’.36

  • 37 J. Bretel, op. cit., ll. 1691--1731; J. Vale, op. cit., pp. 7, 97 n. 37. Blâmont = Meurthe-et-Mose (...)
  • 38 J. Bretel, op. cit., pp. xciv-xcv, ll. 2841-2845; M. Parisse, La Noblesse lorraine, XIe -XIIIe s.,(...)
  • 39 J. Vale, op. cit., pp. 100-101, Nos. 77, 160; M. Parisse, La Noblesse lorraine, XIe-XIIIe s., p. 6 (...)
  • 40 J. Bretel, op. cit., ll. 1691-1731; AD Nord, B. 498, Nos. 3911, 3911bis; Annales Gandenses, p. 4; (...)
  • 41 See AD Nord, B 1266, No. 43527: letter of Jean, duke of Brittany to Guy de Dampierre on Blâmont’s (...)
  • 42 See De Slag bij Kortrijk, ed. V. Fris Ghent, 1902, pp. 241-242, 303-319.

10Like Waléran de Fauquemont, Henri, comte de Blâmont (d. 1331) was also at Chauvency for the tournament of October 1285.37 Son of Ferri I de Blâmont (d. 1256) and Jeanne de Bar, he proposed the division into sides or teams at Chauvency and fought there on the dedens side (‘inner’ or ‘home’ team), with the Burgundians, Lorrainers and Champenois.38 Although seneschal of Lorraine, he was bound by vassalage ties to Bar and Metz, and was among those vassals who supported Thibaut II of Bar in the Beaulieu dispute of 1288 against Philip the Fair.39 He was eulogised by Jacques Bretel in his narrative poem Le Tournoi de Chauvency, and loyally served Guy de Dampierre and his sons in their wars against France. By March 1296 he acknowledged his homage to Guy for lordships in the comté of Alost (East Flanders) but was captured by the French at the battle of Furnes near Lille on 20 August 1297.40 His release from imprisonment was retarded by his escape and subsequent recapture, and by the Philip the Fair’s refusal to countenance his discharge in September 1298 because Edward I declined to release David, king of Scotland.41 But he was an essential prop of the Flemish war effort during these years. So were those thirty or so knights and forty esquires who served with Guy de Namur and Guillaume of Juliers against Robert II d’Artois and who helped to win the battle at Courtrai in July 1302.42 Henri de Loncin from Limburg, Jean de Renesce from Zeeland, Gossuin de Godenshoven from Brabant, and Robert of Leewergem from Alost (Aalst) in imperial Flanders were among the contingent of nobles who led the Flemings at Courtrai. As the Annales Gandenses put it, they turned the French army ‘into a dung-pit’, and ‘made the glory of the French into dung and worms’. These men upheld the reputation of the nobiles Alemanni in battle, siege and tournament. Others acted as go-betweens.

  • 43 Annales Gandenses, pp. 83, 85.
  • 44 J. de Sturler, op. cit., pp. 160-162; Annales Gandenses, p. 85; (Chronique Artésienne, p.83). He a (...)
  • 45 Foedera, t. II, ii, p. 1076; F. Bock, ‘Unknown register of… Edward III’, p. 366.
  • 46 F. Bock, art. cit., p. 371; E. B. Fryde, William de la Pole, p. 143. He acted as Jean III, duke of (...)

11The Brabançon Jean de Cuyck (Cuijk) (d. 1308), for example, was noted as much for his diplomatic as for his military skills. Although the Annales Gandenses described him as a prudens et animosus miles de terra Brabantie, his rôle was largely that of intermediary and negotiator.43 He acted for Edward I in the Low Countries as an ‘auxiliaire précieux de ses desseins’ and represented the Flemings in their negotiations with Philip the Fair in August 1304 and in 1305-130744 A similar role was assumed under Edward III by his son Odo de Cuyck. On 11th March 1339, he and his wife were compensated for their losses in France during their ‘demoere devers nous’ [Edward III] by an annual grant from the London customs of 3,000 florins.45 Odo was a particularly trusted agent of Edward III, for on 28 January 1340 he was commissioned to receive the homage of Bruges, Ypres and other Flemish towns to Edward as king of France. He was one of the hostages held at Brussels for Edward’s debts in April 1340.46 There were evidently some traditional loyalties amid the shifting alliances.

  • 47 E. B. Fryde, Studies in Medieval Trade and Finance, pt. II, pp. 1174-1175; H. S. Offler, art. cit. (...)
  • 48 See F. Funck-Brentano, «Document pour servir à l’histoire des relations de la France avec l’Anglet (...)

12It is well known that both Edward I’s and Edward III’s alliances and contracts with the nobiles Alemanni failed to bring about the ends desired by those monarchs. Edward I was unsuccessful partly because changes in political circumstances led him to withdraw from the Flemish alliance of 1297. Both kings faced immense financial problems – Edward I spent at least £142,026 between June 1294 and April 1298, while Edward spent about £130,112 between November 1337 and January 1341.47 Neither was able, despite this outlay, to discharge his financial obligations to the Empire and to the imperial vassals he had retained. Philip the Fair effectively bought off Adolf of Nassau in 1294; Louis of Bavaria made peace with France in 1341 as a precondition for active intervention in Italy.48 The nobility of the franco-imperial borderlands had, moreover, set so high a monetary value upon their services to the English crown that they had in effect priced themselves out of the market.

  • 49 See F. Kern, Acta Imperii, 1267-1313, Tübingen, 1911, Nos. 92, 308, 309; AD Nord, B 1266, No. 235.
  • 50 AD Nord, B 1266, No. 235. B 498, No. 4080; see. O. Bloch and W.v. Wartburg, Dictionnaire Etymologi (...)
  • 51 P.S. Lewis, «Of Breton Alliances and other matters», Essays in Later Medieval French History, Lond (...)

13Yet the political tensions of the period 1294-1305 in the Low Countries were productive of important developments in the devices whereby military and other services were secured and retained. The terminology employed to describe those thus contracted merits attention. In the surviving contracts there is much talk of ‘aliéz’, ‘aliés et… aidans’, ‘confederatos et coadjutores’, and, most interestingly, the ‘alloié[s]’ or ‘alloués le comte Guy convenenchié et ja paié’.49 The form ‘alloués’ might carry a possible connotation – in these documents issued by Guy de Dampierre’s chancery – of hired service. To be an ‘alloué’ might have resulted from a confusion in a scribe’s mind between the verbs ‘aloier’ and ‘allouer’, (Latin: allocare).50 Whatever the case, a distinction between the bonds created by homage and fealty, on the one hand, and by the alliance, on the other, appears already to be made at this relatively early date. Mr. P. S. Lewis has studied evidence for alliances dating from the later fourteenth century and asks two related questions: ‘did this new, non-feudal contract… create a new and particular relationship for the allié on top of the relationship of vassalage?… Could an alliance indeed reinforce vassalage, the two relationships existing simultaneously between lord and man?’51 We may able to answer these questions in the affirmative if the evidence stemming from the counts of Flanders’ attempts to raise support between 1294 and 1305 is re-examined.

  • 52 AD Nord, B498, No. 4080. See Appendix, No. 1. Guy de Dampierre’s letter was sealed with his seal a (...)
  • 53 AD Nord, B 499, No. 5026; sealed by Godefroi de Naste at Ath, with his equestrian seal and counter (...)
  • 54 See P. S. Lewis, art. cit., pp. 71, 76, 81-82.

14In June 1298, Arnold V, lord of Oudenaarde, was declared by Guy de Dampierre to be ‘nos hom et nos foiaules, et avec chou est il nos alloiies par tel maniere kil nous doit iestre aidans encontre tous et en tous cas, et se tient a no triuwe’.52 A distinction is here drawn between vassalage and alliance. The latter takes the form almost of a secondary contract, superimposed upon vassalage, where the allié must aid the count against all men, on all occasions and would observe truces made by him. Similarly, in 1315, Godefroi de Naste, lord of Beveren, told Robert de Béthune, count of Flanders, that he was also a vassal of Guillaume I, count of Hainaut, Holland, and Zeeland. Guillaume of Hainaut had been summoned by Louis X to aid him against Flanders ‘par hommage, et par les aloiances quil a a lui [i.e. Louis X] pour estre en son aijuve (aide) encontre vous’. Godefroi could thus not serve Robert de Béthune and he therefore renounced the ‘foi et hommage’ that he owed him.53 This was a complex situation but it again demonstrated that although a man might already be a vassal, an additional dimension was introduced into his relationship with a lord by the terms of an alliance.54 It may reflect two factors: the insecurity of ‘feudal’ bonds amid the highly complex network of multiple loyalties which the nobles of these regions had spun like a spider’s web around themselves; and the related need to strengthen those bonds by exacting a more binding, personal assurance of service which might, or might not, be based on the grant of a fief-rente or other money payment. Consistency of purpose was not adversely affected by flexibility in the precise form of contract used.

  • 55 AD Nord, B 1266, No. 235, endorsed: ‘Che sunt li alloues le comte Guy et a combien il doivent serv (...)
  • 56 AD Nord, B 1266, No. 235; and for related documents see ibid., B 498, Nos. 3904, 3914, 3919-3920, (...)
  • 57 See F. Funck-Brentano, Philippe le Bel en Flandre, pp. 241, 251-253; Annales Gandenses, pp. 3-4: ‘ (...)
  • 58 AD Nord, B 1266, No. 235, and compare Nos. 4140 (Catzenellenbegen) and 4138 (‘Clingbergh’) for con (...)

15A list, probably drawn up in 1297 or 1298, of nobles in the service of Guy de Dampierre is worthy of closer examination in this context. It is headed: ‘Ce sunt li alloié le conte convenenchié et ja paie et a combien il doivent servir, heurs mis les seignours Faukemont, Chuc [Cuyck] et Blammont qi ne sont mie parpaié’.55 It not only merits attention as a source for the military activities of the nobility of the franco-imperial marches and for Plantagenet claims upon their services, but as evidence for the emergence of the alliance. From it, the number of nobles who had already contracted (convenenchié) with the count could be derived, as well as the number of armures de fer to be supplied from their retinues. Thus Guillaume, count of Juliers, had contracted to serve with 30 men-at-arms ‘et doit on encore a lui faire tant que 100’, Gérard de Catzenellenbogen with 60; Waléran de Montjoie and Fauquemont with 100; the lord of Houffalize (in Luxembourg) with 20; Jean de Cuyck with 30, while the number in Henri de Blâmont’s company was not yet established.56 Guy de Dampierre’s alliés ranged very widely indeed over the franco-imperial borderlands, including the counts of Spanheim, La Marck, Juliers, Catzenellenbogen and Saverne (Alsace), and the lords of Molsberg, Horne, Pietersheim and Virnenbourg.57 Some, such as the Brabançon count of Horne, were used as recruiting agents: ‘a cui on a a parler pour gens convenenchier’. These included Count Evrard de Catzenellenbogen, who could supply 100 men-at-arms, or the Rhenish Albrecht, lord of Clingberg both of whom were granted fief-rentes by Guy de Dampierre at this time.58

  • 59 AD Nord, B 498, No. 3919 (11 Apr. 1297), printed by B. D. Lyon, op. cit., Appendix 1, No. 17.
  • 60 ADNord, B 498, Nos. 3904, 3920, 3911, 3959-3962. Appendix, Nos. 3, 4.

16Yet the exact relationship between the grant of a fief-rente and the creation of an alliance remains obscure. From the list which I have described, there would be a prima facie case for arguing that all these nobles were ‘pure’ alliés of the count of Flanders, not bound to him, nor his sons, by ties of homage and vassalage. This was not so. On 11 April 1297, for instance, the Brabançon Guillaume, lord of Horne, knight, recognised that ‘je sui devenus horn a… Guion comte de Flandres… et li ai fait homage de cent livrées de terre’, as a perpetual fief-rente per annum. He was to serve with precisely the same number of men-at-arms as specified in the list of Guy’s alliés, and was to be paid 2,000 livres tournois in two instalments for the service of these 30 armures de fer against Philip the Fair and the count of Hainaut. Each knight was to bring no less than 5 horses, each esquire three. The need for spare horses in warfare was already clearly apparent. Guillaume of Horne also bound his son to serve Guy and his heirs in the same wars and agreed to obey any summons issued by Edward I of England, as Guy’s confederate against France.59 Similar agreements were made with Jean, lord of Cuyck, and Henri, his eldest son, Waléran de Fauquemont, Henri de Blâmont, and with five other nobles, listed as alliés of the count of Flanders, but not bound to him by homage, fealty or the grant of a fief-rente.60

  • 61 They were to receive the costs of travelling ‘et ralant jusques a nos hostez’ with 5 horses for ea (...)
  • 62 AD Nord, B 498, Nos. 3959-3962; cf. No. 3919.
  • 63 AD Nord, B 498, No. 3914: he acknowledged receipt of 800 l.t. from Guy de Dampierre in 2 instalmen (...)
  • 64 AD Nord, B 498, Nos. 3959, 3960, 3968 (vigil of St. John Baptist, 1297). See Appendix, No. 3.
  • 65 Ibid., B 498, No. 3961.

17The 5 men – Gérard de Grandpré, lord of Houffalize; Jacques de Werneper, knight, Colard Danerey, knight, Jean de Cyber (? Sibert), knight; and Jean de Saverne, esquire – contracted for military service with Guy de Dampierre in the spring and summer of 1297. Their alliances consisted of short-term military contracts during the count’s wars with France and Hainaut. They were to be given their transport expenses (which were substantial) to and from Flanders, be compensated for lost horses (both rounceys and destriers) and ransomed if captured.61 Service was to be performed ‘bien et loiaument en ses Weres’; if the war ended they were quit of their service and the count was not bound to pay the total sums promised.62 Gérard of Houffalize declared that breach of his contract would be considered perjury.63 Four of these alliés were already linked together by pre-existing bonds – two of them referred to Henri de Blâmont as their ‘lord’, and all four together sealed a quittance acknowledging receipt of 800 livres tournois from the receiver of Flanders.64 There was no ‘feudal’ connection between them and Guy de Dampierre. Each promised to observe their contract with him ‘par mon sairement et par ma foi donnee corporelment en sa main’, addressing him not as their lord but simply as ‘homme honorable’.65 These contracts have much in common with the English indenture for short-term military service, familiar from the later thirteenth century onwards.

  • 66 Ibid., B 1266, No. 235. The estimate is based on addition of the figures given for both actual and (...)
  • 67 See nn. 24, 32, 40, 42, 56 above.
  • 68 AD Nord, B 499, No. 4526 (14 Apr. 1306, dated and sealed with his seal at Deinze). See Appendix, N (...)
  • 69 Cf. P. S. Lewis, art. cit., p. 82; «Decayed and Non-Feudalism in later medieval France», Essays in (...)
  • 70 P. S. Lewis, «Decayed and Non-Feudalism…», pp. 42-58; «Of Breton Alliances…», pp. 72-74, 82-84.
  • 71 Cf. P. S. Lewis, «Of Breton Alliances…», p. 71.

18By whatever means they were raised, it was estimated that 1,189 armures de fer might be enlisted as alliés of the count of Flanders in 1297-1298 from the nobility of the franco-imperial marches.66 Now Guy de Dampierre had been largely deserted by his own Flemish vassals in his war with Philip the Fair. He was thus almost entirely dependent upon the services of these Alemans and of the relatively small force eventually brought by Edward I. The Chronique Artésienne and the Annales Gandenses bear witness to their deeds and exploits in the Franco-Flemish wars.67 Some served the counts of Flanders on a longer-standing basis. On 14 April 1306, Renaud, son of the late Waléran, lord of Montjoie and Fauquemont renewed his father’s contracts with Robert de Béthune, count of Flanders. He referred to ‘toutes les convenenches que nos chiers sires et peres… eut en tans passe’ with Guy de Dampierre and promised that he was bound ‘par no(stre) loialte et par no(stre) serement de tenir et warder fermement et loialment’.68 A Dampierre count of Flanders, like a Montfort duke of Brittany, or a count of Armagnac or Foix-Béarn, needed to raise support from as wide a circle as possible.69 It may be no coincidence that it is in regions where political conditions were exceptionally disturbed that the earliest alliances seem to emerge. The great feud between the counts of Foix and Armagnac, commencing in the 1290s; the Breton civil war beginning in the 1340s; and the Armagnac-Burgundian feud of the later fourteenth and early fifteenth century produced contracts of alliance in large numbers.70 There was an evident need, in all these conflicts, to recruit men who were not vassals; and to shore up the existing bonds of homage and fealty by means of other relationships. An alliance could indeed reinforce vassalage.71 At a time of multiple and negotiable loyalties, the terms of an alliance or (from the mid-fourteenth century onwards) membership of a secular order of chivalry, could strengthen existing bonds as well as create new ones.

  • 72 H. S. Offler, art. cit., p. 618.
  • 73 E. B. Fryde, «Financial Resources of Edward III in the Netherlands, 1337-40», pp. 1142-1143, 1175- (...)

19The experience of war in the 1290s had profound effects upon England, France and Low Countries. Not only did it produce financial crises, but led rulers to seek new means of enforcing military service from those nobles bound to them by contracts of all kinds. Purely mercenary bonds were evidently not strong enough. Nor, in many cases, were the ties of vassalage. Edward III may well have tried to learn from his grandfather’s mistakes, and attempted to enforce service from his allies by exploiting his newly-assumed titles of king of France and imperial vicar-general. His imperial vicariate of 1338 was a ‘potential means of making [his] avowed allies stand by their obligations’.72 He failed, and the collapse of the Anglo-imperial pact between 1338 and 1341 was both a symptom and a cause of a shift in English war aims on the Continent. Although he gained considerable support from the Hainaulters and Brabançons, Edward’s highly elaborate system of alliances and contracts (convenances) with Netherlandish and Rhenish nobles, reinforced by an imperial vicariate, fell apart.73 They were not prepared to risk their lives, capital assets and equipment in a war against superior numbers, led by a ruler who had not yet proved his abilities in continental warfare. It was the last match in a game which had begun under Richard Coeur-de-Lion and Jean Sans Terre, replayed with a larger team by Edward I. English intervention now turned away from the franco-imperial frontiers towards Brittany, the March of Calais, Spain and, above all, Aquitaine. Edward III’s victories were to be won by English and Gascon forces raised from his own subjects. The traditional power-base of the Plantagenets in Western and South-Western France was henceforward to become a major theatre of the Hundred Years War until the reign of Henry V.

Anexos

APPENDIX

1. Lille, AD Nord, B 498, no 4080 (26 June 1298).

Nous Guis cuens de Flandres et marchis de Namur faisons savoir a tous ke nobles hom Ernous sires Daudenarde74 est nos hom et nos foiaules et avec chou est il nos alloiies, par tel maniere kil nous doit iestre aidans encontre tous et en tous cas, et se tient a no triuwe. Par le tesmoing de ces presentes saielees de no saiiel ki furent faites et donnes lan de grasce mil deus cens quatrevins et diis et wit, le juedi apries le Nativite Saint Johan Baptiste.

(Endorsed: Lettre que le sire Dauden[arde] est allies au conte Guy et en ses trieuwes.)

2. Lille, AD Nord, B 498, no 3914 (16 March 1296).

Jou Gerars de Grantpreit sires de Hufalize75 fais savoir a tous ke comme il soit ensi ke treshaus homs et puissans Guys cuens de Flandre et marchis de Namur mait doneit wit cens lb. de petits tornois pour le bon service ke ie li ferai en se were kil a encontre haut hom et poissant le Roi de France et encontre le conte de Henau, a prendre et a paiier a deus termes ki sensuient, cest asavoir a le penthecouste76 quatre cens lb. de le dite monnoie, et les autres quatre cens lb. a le Saint Remi77 apres suiant, et par mi cou ie li doi servir en tous ses besoins bien et loiaument en ses weres devant dites a vint armeures de fer souffissans, des queles li troi doivent estre chevalier ou li doi au moins, li chevaliers a quatre chevaus, et li escuiers a trois, et sil avenist ke acors et pais fust faite entre haus et poissans hommes le Roi de France et mon treschier segneur Guy conte de Flandres et marchis de Namur devantdis, je seroie quites dou service mon segneur le conte devantdis, et ne seroie mie tenus de lui servir encontre le conte de Heynau devant dit. Jou Gerars devant dis ai promis et promech par ma foi franchie a haut et poissant homme Guy conte de Flandre et marchis de Namur devant dit ke ie en ses weres devantdites li servirai bien et loiaument en le fourme et en le maniere ki deseure est dite, et veuil ke se ie venisse a lencontre et ie ne fesisse mie mon devoir ke ie fusse tenus pour parjure. Et quant a cou bien et loiaument acomplir, je oblige mi et tous mes biens meubles et nonmeubles en quelconque liu il soient. Par le tesmoing de ces presentes lettres saielees de mon saiel, ki furent faites et donnees en lan de grace mil deus cens quatrevins et seze le venredi devant le Paske florie.

(Endorsed: Lettre mons.’ Gerard de Grandpret dou service kil promet au conte Guy en ses weres parmi viijclb. kil en doit avoir. Registrata est.)

3. Lille, AD Nord, B 498, no 3960 (17 June 1297).

Je Colars Danerey chevaliers78 fais savoir a touz que je et mi hoir sommes tenui de servir honorable homme mon signour Guy conte de Flandres et marchis de Namur, lui et ces hoirs, atout dix hommes armez de fer, chevaliers, et escuiers filz de chevaliers, tant comme la guerre qui maintenant est entre noble prince le roi de France et noble homme le conte de Henaut dune part, et le dit conte de Flandres et ces hoirs dautre durra, pour sept cens livres de tornois petis, de la quel somme li dis cuens me doit paier dedens ceste Saint Jehan qui or vient deus cens livres, et dedens les trois semaines apres ensuans deus cens livres quant mes gens seront venues que je aie nombre de dix hommes armez de fer. Les autres trois cens livres qui demeurent de la somme dessusdite me doit li dis cuens paier a la feste Saint Remey qui apres vient. Et doit soignier a moi et a ma gent despens soffissans en venant vers li en demorant en sa terre et en ralant jusques a nos hostelz, cest a savoir cinc chevalz a chevalier et a lescuier trois, et se par aventure avenoit que je ne ma gent eussiens damaige en perdant chevalz ne roncins, ne en person daucun de nos home darmes povre ne riche, tant que nos seriens en son servise, il est tenus de deffaire et de restablir touz les damaiges que nos auriens receus pour ceste enchoison de son servise. Et chascuns de nos chevaliers et escuiers seroit creus de sa perde par son sairement sens autre prueve, et se de ceste dite guerre paix estoit faites ou trues en fussent donees, il ne seroit mie por ceu tenus de paier a moi la dite somme dargent as termines dessus nommes, et toutes ces covenances li ai je promis a tenir sens encontre venir par mon sairement et par ma foi donee corporelment en sa main. Et pour ceu quil en soit plus seurs len ai je donei ces presentes lettres saïelees par ma requeste des seialz honorables hommes mon signour Hanri signour de Blammont79, signour Jehan de Cyberc80, chevaliers, dou mien, et dou saiel Jehan de Salewerne81, escuier. Et nos Hanris sires de Blammont, Jehans de Cyberc, chevalier, et Jehans de Salewerne, escuiers, dessus dit a la proiere dou signour Colart devant nommei avons mis nos saielz avuec le sien en ces presentes lettres qui furent faites lan de graice mil deuz cens quatrevins et dix et sept, le lundi devant la feste Saint Jehan Baptistre.

(Endorsed: Lettre mons.’ Nicole Danieri ki promet le conte Guy a servir a plusieurs hommes darmes en sa guerre contre le Roy et contre le conte de Haynau.)

4. Lille, AD Nord, B 498, no 3968 (23 June 1297).

Nos Colars Danerey, Jaiques de Werneper82, Jehans de Ciber, chevalier et Jehans de Salwerne, escuiers, faisons savoir a tous que nos avons receu de honorable prince le conte de Flandres par la main maistre Jaique de Donze83, son receveur de Flandres, chascuns de nos deuz cens livres de tournoix petis, et de ceste somme dargent nos tenons bien a paie et en quitons le dist conte de Flandres par ces presentes lettres. Et pour ce que nos Colars Danerey, Jaiques de Werneper, chevalier, desus dist, navons nuls seials84, avons nous requis a nostre amei signour Hanri, signour de Blammont, et a signour Jehan de Ciber, chevalier et a Jehan de Salverne, escuier dis que meissent lor seielz en ces presentes lettres. Et nos Hanris, sires de Blammont, a la requeste des dis signours Colar Danerez, signeur Jaique de Werneper, signour Jehan de Ciber, chevaliers, et Jehan de Salverne, escuier, avons mis nostre seiel en ces presentes lettres avuec les seiels signour Jehan de Ciber, chevalier, et Jehan de Salverne, escuier, les quelles furent faites lan de grace mil deuz cens quatrevins et dix et sept, le dyemoinge de la vigile Saint Jehan Baptistre.

5. Lille, AD Nord, B 499, no 4526 (14 April 1306).

Nous Renaud, fiex de noble Walran jadis seingnour de Monjoie et de Faukemont85 faisons savoir a tous que nous toutes les convenenches que nos chiers sires et peres dessus ditz, qui diex assoille, eut en tans passe a tres haut et tres noble prince Guyon jadis conte de Flandres et marchis de Namur, qui diex ait larme, promectons a tres haut et tres noble prince Robert conte de Flandres86 avons en convent et sommes tenus par no loialte et par no serement de tenir et warder fermement et loialment ausi avant comme il est contenu es lettres pendans qui fetes sont sur chou. En tiesmoignage et seurte de la quel chose avons nous Renaud dessus ditz a ces presentes lettres mis nostre seel pendant. Fetes et donnees a Donze87, le jeusdi apres closes Pasques, en lan de grace mil trois centz et siis ou mois davrilz.

(Endorsed: Li sires de Fakemont en soi obligant ensic com ses peires.)

Notas

1 G. L. Harriss, King Parliament and Public Finance in Medieval England to 1369, Oxford, 1975, p. 232; M. Prestwich, The Three Edwards: War and State in England, 1272-1377, London, 1980, p. 54.

2 M. McKisack, The Fourteenth Century, Oxford, 1959, p. 149.

3 F. M. Powicke, Henry III and the Lord Edward, t. I, Oxford, 1947, p. 244; F. R. Lewis, «Beatrice of Falkenburg, 3rd wife of Richard of Cornwall», EHR, t. LIII (1937), pp. 279-282. The marriage took place at Kaiserslautern on 16 June 1269.

4 F. R. Lewis, art. cit., p. 180, and his article «Ottokar II of Bohemia and the double election of 1257», Speculum, t. XII (1937), pp. 512-515.

5 Annales de Osneia, ed. H. R. Luard, in Annales monastici, London, 1864-1869, t. IV, pp. 223-224; F. R. Lewis, «Beatrice of Falkenburg…», p. 282; for gifts to her by Edward I after her husband’s death see CCR, 1271-1279, pp. 299, 315, 319; Annales de Osneia, p. 274. Richard of Cornwall died on 2 Apr. 1272, Beatrix on 17 Oct. 1277.

6 S. H. Steinberg, «A portrait of Beatrice of Falkenburg», Antiquaries Journal, t. XVIII (1938), pp. 142-145; Age of Chivalry. Art in Plantagenet England, 1200-1400, ed. J. Alexander and P. Binski, London, 1987, p. 290. The glass is now in the Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries. See Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum, Stained and Painted Heraldic Glass: the Burrell Collection, Glasgow, 1962, No. 1; Age of Chivalry, p. 203; E. Grimme, «Der Aachener Domschatz», Aachener Kunstblätter, t. XLII (1972), No. 51.

7 F. M. Powicke, op. cit., pp. 236-246; The Thirteenth Century, 1216-1307, Oxford, 1954, pp. 120-122.

8 Below, nn. 30-34.

9 F. M. Powicke, Thirteenth Century, p. 268; J. de Sturler, Les relations politiques et les échanges commerciaux entre le duché de Brabant et l’Angleterre au Moyen Age, Paris, 1936, pp. 145-146.

10 H. S. Lucas, The Low Countries and the Hundred Years War, 1326-1347, Ann Arbor, 1929, repr. 1976, p. 14; Edmond de Dynter, Chronique des ducs de Brabant, ed. P.F.X. de Ram, t. II, Brussels, 1854, pp. 720-728.

11 H. S. Lucas, op. cit., pp. 14-15; L. Galesloot, Le livre des feudataires de Jean III, duc de Brabant, Brabant, 1865, pp. vi-x; passim.

12 F. M. Powicke, Thirteenth Century, pp. 264, 668; for her dowry, see P.R.O., C.47/27/3, No. 4 (April? 1293).

13 PRO., S.C.1/15, No. 8.

14 See, most recently, W. M. Ormrod, «Edward III and his Family», Journal of British Studies, t. XXVI (1987), pp. 402-403.

15 See F. M. Powicke, Thirteenth Century, pp. 246-247.

16 See B. D. Lyon, From Fief to Indenture: the transition from feudal to non-feudal contract in Western Europe, Cambridge, Mass., 1957, pp. 207-208; J. W. Baldwin, The Government of Philip Augustus, Berkeley/Los Angeles, 1986, pp. 207-216.

17 H. S. Lucas, op. cit., p. 328-367; E. Déprez, Les Préliminaires de la Guerre de Cent Ans, 1328-1346, Paris, 1902, pp. 125-139, 195-198.

18 Cf. G. Barraclough, «Edward I and Adolf of Nassau: a chapter of medieval diplomatic history», CHJ, t. VI (1940), pp. 225-262; F. Trautz, Die Könige von England und das Reich, 1272-1377, mit einem Rückblick auf ihr Verhältnis zu den Staufem, Heidelberg, 1961, pp. 127-134, and Treaty Rolls, t. I, 1234-1325, ed. P. Chaplais, London, 1955, pp. 98-100 for Edward I’s confirmation of the alliance (22 Oct. 1294).

19 For comparisons between the alliances, particularly from the financial point of view, see E. B. Fryde, «Financial resources of Edward III in the Netherlands, 1337-1340», Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire, t. XIV (1967), pp. 1142-1216; «Financial resources of Edward I in the Netherlands, 1294-1298: main problems and some comparisons with Edward III in 1337-1340», ibid., t. XL (1962), pp. 1168-1187.

20 F. Trautz, op. cit., pp. 275-278; H. S. Offler, «England and Germany at the beginning of the Hundred Years War», EHR, t. LIV (1939), pp. 608-610.

21 H. S. Offler, art. cit., pp. 611-612; F. Trautz, op. cit., pp. 274-275.

22 H. S. Offler, art. cit., pp. 612, 615. For French intervention on the imperial frontiers at an earlier date see G. Lizerand, «Philippe le Bel et l’Empire au temps de Rodolphe de Habsbourg (1285-1291)», Revue Historique, t. CXLII (1923), pp. 161-191, and J. Havet, «La frontière d’Empire dans l’Argonne: l’enquête faite par ordre de Rodolphe de Habsbourg à Verdun, en mai 1288», BEC, t. XLII (1881), pp. 383-428, 612-613.

23 G. Barraclough, art. cit., p. 245.

24 F. Funck-Brentano, Les Origines de la Guerre de Cent ans, Philippe le Bel en Flandre, Paris, 1897, p. 251; Annales Gandenses, ed. H. Johnstone, Oxford, repr. 1985, p. 3.

25 See M. Sczaniecki, Essai sur les fiefs-rentes, Paris, 1946, pp. 5-34; B. D. Lyon, op. cit., pp. 183-232.

26 For some examples see Rotuli de Misis, Record Commission, 1844, pp. 240-242 (1213); Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum (1833), p. 139. The figure is derived from B. D. Lyon, op. cit., pp. 203-207, esp. p. 204.

27 B. D. Lyon, op. cit., pp. 46-47, 230-232.

28 See R. Cazelles, «Quelques réflexions à propos des mutations de la monnaie royale (1295-1360)», Le Moyen Age, t. LXXVII (1966), pp. 83-105; J. R. Strayer, «The Costs and Profits of War: the Anglo-French conflict of 1294-1303», in The Medieval City, ed. H. A. Miskimin, D. Herlihy, A. L. Udovitch, Yale, 1977, pp. 277-279, 290-291, where a ‘new type of warfare’ is discerned after 1290 which transferred wealth to ‘middling and petty nobles’ whose incomes were declining.

29 B. D. Lyon, op. cit., p. 38, where a ‘sharp differentiation’ between ‘feudal and non-feudal elements in contracts for service from the late thirteenth century onwards’ is seen. See below nn. 50-53.

30 J. Bretel, Le Tournoi de Chauvency, ed. M. Delbouille, Liège, Paris, 1932,11. 3812-3813; J. Vale, Edward III and Chivalry. Chivalric Society and its Context, 1270-1350, Woodbridge, 1982, pp. 5-12, 139-162, for a detailed analysis of the tournament and the composition of the dedans and dehors sides.

31 Edmond de Dynter, Chronique des ducs de Brabant, pp. 715-722, and J. Bertholet, Histoire ecclésiastique et civile du duché de Luxembourg et comté de Chiny, Luxembourg, 1734, pp. 246, 250-252, 262 for his part in the war between Brabant and Guelders over the succession to Limbourg.

32 Annales Gandenses, p. 3; F. Funck-Brentano, op. cit., pp. 243-244. For the Fauquemonts’ accumulation of fiefs-rentes from many lords, including the dukes of Brabant, Edward I and Edward III of England, the count of Hainaut and the archbishop of Cologne, see, B. D. Lyon, op. cit., p. 47.

33 Foedera, t. II, ii, p. 992. He claimed that he had lost his horses in Nov. 1339 and demanded £600 as compensation. See E. B. Fryde, «Financial Resources of Edward III», Studies in Medieval Trade and Finance, London, 1983, pt. VII, p. 1180.

34 F. Bock, «An unknown register of the reign of Edward III», EHR, t. XIV (1930), p. 366; H. S. Offler, art. cit., pp. 612-615.

35 PRO., C.81/No. 13518; E. Déprez, op. cit., p. 357, n. 1. See also The Wardrobe Book of William de Norwell, 12 July 1338-27 May 1340, ed. M. Lyon, B. Lyon, H. S. Lucas, Brussels, 1983, pp. xiv, cxiii, 289-290, 418-419.

36 For Edward’s financial plight at this time see E. B. Fryde, William de la Pole, Merchant and King’s Banker (+ 1366), London, 1988, pp. 171-173.

37 J. Bretel, op. cit., ll. 1691--1731; J. Vale, op. cit., pp. 7, 97 n. 37. Blâmont = Meurthe-et-Moselle, ar. Lunéville. The Blâmont were a cadet branch of the counts of Salm, whose arms they bore. See M. Parisse, Noblesse et chevalerie en Lorraine médiévale, Nancy, 1982, pp. 331, Table 11 on p. 359.

38 J. Bretel, op. cit., pp. xciv-xcv, ll. 2841-2845; M. Parisse, La Noblesse lorraine, XIe -XIIIe s., Lille, Paris, 1976, Table 23.

39 J. Vale, op. cit., pp. 100-101, Nos. 77, 160; M. Parisse, La Noblesse lorraine, XIe-XIIIe s., p. 618. See also E. Martimprey de Romécourt, «Les sires et comtes de Blâmont», MSAL., (1890), pp. 76-192; (1891), 5-146.

40 J. Bretel, op. cit., ll. 1691-1731; AD Nord, B. 498, Nos. 3911, 3911bis; Annales Gandenses, p. 4; Chronique Artésienne, 1295-1304, ed. F. Funck-Brentano, Paris, 1899, pp. 14, 16 for his capture at Furnes and his son’s at the bridge of Comines (16 July 1297).

41 See AD Nord, B 1266, No. 43527: letter of Jean, duke of Brittany to Guy de Dampierre on Blâmont’s imprisonment (? May 1298); F. Funck-Brentano, Philippe le Bel en Flandre, pp. 285, 320.

42 See De Slag bij Kortrijk, ed. V. Fris Ghent, 1902, pp. 241-242, 303-319.

43 Annales Gandenses, pp. 83, 85.

44 J. de Sturler, op. cit., pp. 160-162; Annales Gandenses, p. 85; (Chronique Artésienne, p.83). He acted as financial agent and representative of the duke of Brabant in England from 1294 onwards.

45 Foedera, t. II, ii, p. 1076; F. Bock, ‘Unknown register of… Edward III’, p. 366.

46 F. Bock, art. cit., p. 371; E. B. Fryde, William de la Pole, p. 143. He acted as Jean III, duke of Brabant’s agent in the negotiation of his alliance with Edward III in July 1337 (Treaty Rolls, t. II, 1337-1339, pp. 13-15).

47 E. B. Fryde, Studies in Medieval Trade and Finance, pt. II, pp. 1174-1175; H. S. Offler, art. cit., pp. 619-620.

48 See F. Funck-Brentano, «Document pour servir à l’histoire des relations de la France avec l’Angleterre et l’Allemagne sous le règne de Philippe le Bel», Revue Historique, t. XXXIX (1889), pp. 326-348, esp. p. 332; G. Barraclough, art. cit., pp. 228-230 for a different view; E. B. Offler, art. cit., pp. 617-618; F. Trautz, op. cit., pp. 305-317.

49 See F. Kern, Acta Imperii, 1267-1313, Tübingen, 1911, Nos. 92, 308, 309; AD Nord, B 1266, No. 235.

50 AD Nord, B 1266, No. 235. B 498, No. 4080; see. O. Bloch and W.v. Wartburg, Dictionnaire Etymologique de la Langue Française, t. I, Paris, 1932, pp. 22-23; R. Grandsaignes d’Hauterive, Dictionnaire d’Ancien français, Paris, 1947, pp. 18-19 for ‘aloïer’, ‘aloïance’ and ‘allouer’.

51 P.S. Lewis, «Of Breton Alliances and other matters», Essays in Later Medieval French History, London, 1985, p. 71.

52 AD Nord, B498, No. 4080. See Appendix, No. 1. Guy de Dampierre’s letter was sealed with his seal and counter-seal bearing the legend: secretum Guido’ comitis Flandrie.

53 AD Nord, B 499, No. 5026; sealed by Godefroi de Naste at Ath, with his equestrian seal and counter-seal of arms. The letter is endorsed ‘Cest li renonce dou fief moss. Godefrois de Nast’. See also B. D. Lyon, op. cit., Appendix, No. 20 for a letter of Louis X confirming a fief-rente granted by Philip the Fair to the counts of Hainaut for which they owed homage and military service against the count of Flanders during the war (Dec. 1315).

54 See P. S. Lewis, art. cit., pp. 71, 76, 81-82.

55 AD Nord, B 1266, No. 235, endorsed: ‘Che sunt li alloues le comte Guy et a combien il doivent servir’. Surviving contracts and quittances suggest a date of 1297 or 1298. There is a similar undated list of household knights and their retinues in Guy de Dampierre’s service, with payments for service, in AD Nord, B 1266, No. 234.

56 AD Nord, B 1266, No. 235; and for related documents see ibid., B 498, Nos. 3904, 3914, 3919-3920, 3959-3968. See Appendix, Nos. 2, 3, 4.

57 See F. Funck-Brentano, Philippe le Bel en Flandre, pp. 241, 251-253; Annales Gandenses, pp. 3-4: ‘multos comites et nobiles Alemannie, per pecuniam conductos’, ‘multos Alemannes audaces’, (1297); Chronique Artésienne., pp. 16, 24. Some were captured at the battle of Furnes (20 Aug. 1297).

58 AD Nord, B 1266, No. 235, and compare Nos. 4140 (Catzenellenbegen) and 4138 (‘Clingbergh’) for contracts dating from 1298, confirmed in 1299. They agreed to serve Guy and his heirs ‘sicut vassalus dominio’… ‘fideliter… et specialiter in hiis que in curia… Romanorum regis vel apud eundem habebimus expedire’.

59 AD Nord, B 498, No. 3919 (11 Apr. 1297), printed by B. D. Lyon, op. cit., Appendix 1, No. 17.

60 ADNord, B 498, Nos. 3904, 3920, 3911, 3959-3962. Appendix, Nos. 3, 4.

61 They were to receive the costs of travelling ‘et ralant jusques a nos hostez’ with 5 horses for each knight and 3 per esquire, and were to be compensated for the loss of roncins as well as destriers (AD Nord, B 498, No. 3959). Each knight or esquire would be ‘creus de son perde par son sairement sans autre preuve’ (No. 3960). Appendix, No. 3.

62 AD Nord, B 498, Nos. 3959-3962; cf. No. 3919.

63 AD Nord, B 498, No. 3914: he acknowledged receipt of 800 l.t. from Guy de Dampierre in 2 instalments and was to bring 20 ‘armures de fer souffisans desqueles li troi doivent estre chevaliers, on li doi au moins, li chevaliers a quatre chevius, et li escuiers a trois’. He promised ‘par ma foi franchie’ to serve the count in his wars; if ‘je venisse a lencontre et je ne fesisse mie mon devoir, ke je fasse tenus pour parjure’. See Appendix, No. 2.

64 AD Nord, B 498, Nos. 3959, 3960, 3968 (vigil of St. John Baptist, 1297). See Appendix, No. 3.

65 Ibid., B 498, No. 3961.

66 Ibid., B 1266, No. 235. The estimate is based on addition of the figures given for both actual and potential forces.

67 See nn. 24, 32, 40, 42, 56 above.

68 AD Nord, B 499, No. 4526 (14 Apr. 1306, dated and sealed with his seal at Deinze). See Appendix, No. 5.

69 Cf. P. S. Lewis, art. cit., p. 82; «Decayed and Non-Feudalism in later medieval France», Essays in Later Medieval French History, pp. 45-46, 61-62; M. G. A. Vale, English Gascony, 1399-1453, Oxford, 1970, pp. 171-176; «Seigneurial fortification and private war in later medieval GascoGascony», in Gentry and Lesser Nobility in late medieval Europe, ed. M. Jones, Gloucester, 1986, pp. 138-141.

70 P. S. Lewis, «Decayed and Non-Feudalism…», pp. 42-58; «Of Breton Alliances…», pp. 72-74, 82-84.

71 Cf. P. S. Lewis, «Of Breton Alliances…», p. 71.

72 H. S. Offler, art. cit., p. 618.

73 E. B. Fryde, «Financial Resources of Edward III in the Netherlands, 1337-40», pp. 1142-1143, 1175-1181. Fryde concluded that ‘the prolonged subsidizing of a continental coalition was beyond the means of an English king in this period’ (p. 1142). In March 1341 Edward spoke of ‘les grants paiements a faire a noz alliez et a nos gens de Flandres selon les convenances, sinon nous perdons leur alliance’ (PRO, C.76/8, m. 29: 2 Mar. 1341).

74 Audenarde (Oudenaarde), Belgium; prov. Flandre orientale, ch.-l. d’ar. For Arnold V’s genealogy and seal, see E. Warlop, The Flemish Nobility before 1300, t. IV, Kortrijk, 1976, pp. 1041-1042. His daughter married Gérard de Grandpré, lord of Houffalize. See below, n. 2.

75 Houffalize, Belgium, prov. Luxembourg, ar. Marche-en-Famenne, ch.-l. cant.

76 13 May 1296.

77 13 Jan. 1298.

78 Darney (?), France; dép. Vosges, ar. Epinal, ch.-l. cant. See M. Parisse, Noblesse et chevalerie en Lorraine médiévale, Nancy, 1982, pp. 284-288, 334, 376.

79 Blâmont, France; dép. Meurthe-et-Moselle, ar. Lunéville (Lorraine).

80 Sibert (?). For a reference to the arms of this German family see Armorial Général, ed. J. B. Rietstap, t. II, Gouda, 1887, p. 772.

81 Saverne, France; dép. Bas-Rhin, ch.-l. d’arr. (Alsace).

82 Varnepert (?). The arms of this Lorrainer family are listed in J. B. Rietstap, op. cit., t. II, p. 975.

83 See F. Funck-Brentano, Les Origines de la Guerre de Cent ans, Philippe le Bel en Flandre, Paris, 1897, pp. 124-127.

84 Colart evidently had a seal in his possession on 17 June 1297 for he sealed a contract with Guy de Dampierre on that day. See above, No. 5 and Appendix, No. 3.

85 Fauquemont (Falkenberg), Holland; province of Limbourg, district of Maastricht. For letters of Renaud, lord of Monjoie and Fauquemont, recognising that he would do no damage to the bishop of Liège and duke of Brabant, during war, by means of the castle at Rode within his lands, held from the duke of Brabant by Winand de Rode (21 July 1318), see Livre des feudataires de Jean III, duc de Brabant, ed. L. Galesloot, Brussels, 1865, p. 282.

86 Robert de Béthune, count of Flanders (1305-1322).

87 Deinze, Belgium; prov. Flandre orientale, ar. Gand.

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