The Story of Chartres

by Cecil Headlam

But it was not till three years later that hostilities broke out between France and England, when the three sons of Henry Plantagenet—Henry, Geoffrey and Richard Cœur-de-Lion—united with Louis and the Princes of Champagne against their father. That redoubtable coalition of Frenchmen, Chartrains, Champenois and Angevins was, however, no match for the English King. Beaten near Verneuil, Louis was obliged to make terms with his enemy in the following year (1174).

The blood of the martyred À Becket had sprinkled his friend and secretary, John of Salisbury. ‘By the grace of God and the merits of the martyr, S. Thomas,’ as he himself expresses it, he was called to succeed William aux Blanches-Mains in the bishopric of Chartres. The life of the great writer was nearly over when he came there, bringing with him, as a gift to the treasure of the Cathedral, a phial containing some drops of the blood of the master whom he had so faithfully served at Canterbury and followed in exile, and the dagger with which that master had been murdered. But, short as was his tenure of the See, he left his mark upon the history of Chartres. He overthrew the exorbitant pretensions of the secular lords who claimed as choses of their domain all serfs set free by the Church, and thus rendered illusory the enfranchisement of ecclesiastical serfs, and he obtained for clerks brought to justice that they should henceforth not be condemned to undergo trial by ordeal, whether of duel, hot iron, or hot or cold water.

Philosopher and man of affairs, secretary of Archbishop Theobald, intimate friend of Nicholas Breakspear (the only Englishman who has ever filled the chair of S. Peter), and the devoted adherent of Thomas à Becket, John was born at Salisbury, but his enthusiasm for culture he owed to his training as a youth under Abelard at Paris, and in the school of Chartres. For that school still maintained the reputation which it had acquired under Fulbert. In his book Metalogicus, John, who has been termed the ‘central figure of English learning’ in his time, has left us a lively account of the method of teaching practised by Bernard Sylvester, ‘the old man of Chartres, the most fruitful source of letters in all France,’ and by his successors. The breadth of view, the sound common sense, and the lack of pedantry which characterise John of Salisbury’s contributions to logic and to political thought are due, we may believe, not only to his practical training in the Archbishop’s household at Canterbury, but also to the ‘humane’ teaching of Bernard and his school. John of Salisbury died in 1180, and was buried in the Monastery of S. Marie-de-Josaphat, now destroyed (see p. 98). His books he left to the Cathedral library. He was succeeded by his friend Pierre, Abbot of Celles, and afterwards of S. Remy, at Reims, with whom he had passed a great part of his exile, when the exquisite chevet there, one of the earliest bits of pointed architecture, was being built. This excellent bishop spent the two years of his episcopate in the execution of public works, the abolition of vexatious feudal customs, and the distribution of alms. At his own charges he constructed the town walls from the Porte des Épars to the Church of S. Foy, and repaved the streets. He obtained from the Count a modification in the exercise of the right of Banvin. For, according to usage, it was forbidden to sell wine during a period of time called the ban, in order to give the lord an opportunity of selling his wine without competition. Thibault consented to abolish this custom, whilst exacting a small toll from those who sold wine in inns during the ban. And the charity of Pierre de Celles was so abounding that, at his funeral, the crowd flung itself upon his coffin and embraced his corpse. His successor was Renaud de Mouçon, under whom the Cathedral was built. He, like Thibault, had taken the Cross in 1189, but, unlike the Count, returned home alive and well.

The thirteenth century saw yet another Count of Chartres lay down his life in battle with the Infidels. For Louis, who had been made King of Bithynia by the Emperor Baldwin after the sack of Constantinople (1204), was attacked by the Bulgarians before Andrinople and perished heroically. Jean de Friaize, seeing that he had been twice severely wounded, exhorted him to retire. ‘Nay,’ he cried. ‘Leave me to fight and die. God grant that I may never be reproached with having fled the battle!’ His son took part in the crusade against the Moors and also in that other holy war, more popular because less distant, which Simon de Montfort conducted. Following their Count and their Bishop, thousands marched south to massacre the Albigenses, because they entertained the heresy of the Manichæans, which admits the existence of two gods, identified with the principles of good and evil.

Meantime, whilst bishops and counts were warring against Turks, Moors and Albigenses, Chartres was left in the hands of the Countess Catherine, in whose name a marshal of her palace and a provost of the town administered justice. The jealousy between the Count’s men and the protégés of the Chapter which was always smouldering broke out in a startling fashion about this time. The outbreak is worth mentioning, for it throws light upon the growing power and self-assertion of the people. Speaking generally, the tendency at this period was for the notable citizens of the town to become, under the title of Avoués, vassals or protégés of the Chapter, but the trades and corporations, revolting against the oppression of the Avoués, who tried to exact from them all the taxes and impositions laid upon the town, strove to secure their liberties and customs by rallying to the Count. On the pretext, then, of some injury done to a serf of the Countess by the Dean William, the people burst suddenly into the cloister and laid siege to the house of the Dean.

The Chapter demanded the intervention of the marshal and the provost, but those officers, instead of stopping the riot, incited the mob to break down the doors and smash the windows of the house. The Dean from the first had wisely taken refuge in the Cathedral, but his retainers, barricading themselves, returned the assaults of the rioters with a rain of tiles and faggots. Maddened by this resistance, the mob procured a heavy waggon, and using it as a battering-ram burst open the main entrance and sacked the house, hurling all the furniture out of windows.

Next day the outraged Chapter excommunicated the town and banlieue. No services were held; the altar of Notre-Dame was stripped of its ornaments; and even the curfew bell was not allowed to ring. Every day from the top of the jubé a priest pronounced the terrible curse known as ‘the great excommunication, the anathema and fulmination.’ At this solemn moment the candles were lit and the bells rung confusedly, and, as the priest finished his malediction, all became silent again and the candles were extinguished. But this demonstration, usually so effective, was received with shouts of laughter and screams of abuse.

However, a fire which destroyed the lower streets on the banks of the Eure filled the rioters with fear. The revolutionists, thinking that they beheld the finger of God, were ready to submit, but the Dean and Chapter had already summoned the King, who came incontinent to Chartres, and after inquiry ordered the Count’s people to make amende honorable and to pay for the damage they had done. But the bishop returning from abroad was not satisfied, and at his request Phillippe-Auguste ordered the offenders to pay a heavy fine and to make amende honorable in full church, on a feast day, nuds en chemise, and bringing rods with which they were to be scourged before the altar of the Virgin. And this was actually done. Thus, says the chronicler, the Church by the aid of Heaven emerged from this tribulation.

But the quarrel between the two parties was not quenched. It broke out five years later, and was settled again to the disadvantage of the Counts. Later, in a collision between the bourgeois and the men attached to the Cathedral, two of the latter were killed. The murderers were pursued by some canons and protected by others. One canon was assassinated by his brethren. A new excommunication was pronounced upon the town. The synod appointed to judge the matter, not thinking itself safe in the presence of the growing power of the Third Estate, removed to Mantes. The banishment of the murderers and the intervention of S. Louis succeeded in producing an apparent calm. But the storm soon broke out afresh, and the people plundered and the Chapter excommunicated as vigorously as ever.

Troublesome as these perpetual conflicts between the rival authorities were, it is to be observed that the liberty of the cloister and the privileges of the clergy, which were in dispute, were institutions which led to the emancipation of some Chartrain families formerly subject to the Counts. The ecclesiastical corporations, in fact, set an example in this matter of enfranchisement which the Counts were slow to follow. And it was probably due to this antagonism that the feudal lords of Chartres delayed for so long the grants of a communal charter to the town.