Cathedral Cities of France

by R. W. S. Herbert Marshall; Hester Marshall

At the present day it is upon the Tapestry that Bayeux bases its chief claim to notoriety, and the first feeling is one of surprise if not of disappointment on finding that it can hardly be reckoned as tapestry at all. This impression, however, soon disappears when we come to consider the interest and importance of the work, not merely as a local but also as an historic monument. Many and fierce have been the controversies as to its origin—all the more so from the fact that it was not brought to light until (speaking relatively) within recent times, so that little can be gained from history or tradition, or, indeed, from anything beyond the internal evidence. The form of the Tapestry is well known to all visitors of Bayeux (and without going so far afield, a very accurate copy may be seen at the South Kensington Museum)—a long, narrow piece of linen, embroidered in crewel work of five different colours, setting forth the conquest of England by Duke William. In 1724 M. Lancelot found a copy of some of the scenes among the papers of the Intendant of Normandy, and concluding after a close investigation that everything pointed to the work being contemporary with the events depicted, communicated his discovery to the Académie Française. Montfaucon carried on the investigation, and finally discovered the original of Lancelot’s copy in a length of tapestry which was hung round the Cathedral at Bayeux on great festivals. The early authorities seem to have entertained no doubt of its being contemporary, but later accounts set forth theories so widely different from one another, and in some cases so flatly contradictory, that it is impossible to enter into them within a very limited space. Following the authority of Freeman, who treats the subject in a very complete manner in his “History of the Norman Conquest” (vol. iii. Appendix, note A), we may assume that the “Toilette du Duc Guillaume,” as it is called in an ecclesiastical inventory at Bayeux of the fifteenth century, is contemporary with the history of the Conqueror, but is more likely to have been connected with Odo than with Queen Matilda. This theory is supported by the prominence given in the various scenes to “Turold, Vital, and Wadard, ” who are mentioned in Domesday Book as vassals of the bishop, but are in themselves quite unimportant, which would suggest that the original interest of the Tapestry was intended to be a purely local one, for the Bishop of Bayeux alone. Freeman thinks it possible that the work may have been done in England. When Napoleon became First Consul he sent for the tapestry from Bayeux, and displayed it in the Louvre as an incentive to Frenchmen to conquer England as Duke William had conquered it some seven centuries before. After this it returned to Bayeux, and was formerly shown to the curious visitor rolled on a windlass; but later days have treated it more reverently, and it is now preserved under glass in a condition of colour and texture which, considering its age and its adventures, it little short of marvellous.

Side by side with that of the Conqueror, the other memory which Bayeux calls up is undoubtedly that of the greatest bishop the little city ever knew, who governed it during half a century of Normandy’s most stirring history. Odo’s life-story stands out among those of the men of his time, indeed, much as does the life-story of his half-brother, Duke William. In an age when bishops wielded sword as well as mace, he outstripped his contemporaries not only in ecclesiastical power, but in the highest of temporal ambitions. Like Wolsey, he aimed at being Pope above all his other goals. In the meantime Odo despised no stepping-stones to power. He became Bishop of Bayeux in 1048; fought with William at Senlac, “in full armour by the side of his brother and sovereign, as eager and ready as William himself to plunge in wherever in the fight danger should press most nearly,” and in the following year, when fear of foreign invasions called the new king back to Normandy, he was left in joint command of England with Fitz-Osbern, and given the title of Earl of Kent. Thus we see that Odo had two distinct provinces—a secular one in England, a spiritual one in Normandy—and his rule seems to have differed according to the province in which he found himself. As Earl of Kent, the native chroniclers declare he was harsh, oppressive and tyrannical; his followers were lawless, and were dreaded through his territory. The chroniclers of Bayeux, however, show him up as a munificent prelate, generous in giving, a patron of “learning and good conversation, ” and, above all, a benefactor to his see in that he rebuilt the church where his flock worshipped, and where the crypt and part of the western towers still bear witness of his work. William of Poitiers, the chronicler of all that William did, extends his panegyrics to Odo, and declares that he was appreciated and beloved both in Normandy and England. But this probably results, Freeman points out, from the immense admiration of William the chronicler for William the duke, which would probably—so partial were historians in those days—lead him to believe that not only was the Conqueror impeccable, but his lieutenants also.

Caen follows as a natural corollary to Bayeux, and once one has embarked upon a journey in the Bessin and Calvados districts, it seems almost invidious to stay in one town without paying a visit to the others, both being so intimately bound up with the story of the Conqueror.

The churches of Caen have never had any pretence to episcopal dignity, and it is curious that this city, richer in great churches than any town in Normandy, should never have been raised to a bishopric, more especially considering the number of cathedral towns which beside such a city as this rank as hardly more than large villages, and yet which, because they possess one church of importance, must take precedence of Caen and other bishopless cities. Apart from its ecclesiastical dignity, however, Caen should be visited because it is a town both ancient and beautiful, and in memory of the great duke, who, English sovereign though he was, yet seems to come before us much more vividly in Normandy than in England. It was the Conqueror who made Caen—perhaps not as it is to-day, but at any rate as it was in the Middle Ages. Caen, or Cadomum as the Normans found it, was a tiny parish lying on the outskirts of the Bessin district, burnt probably by the first Norman invaders, and likewise included in Rolf’s conquests, but of too little importance either to be harmed by the one or benefited by the other. Then arose the discussion about William’s marriage with Matilda, the dispensation granted by the Pope for their breach of canonical law and the conditions under which William might keep his wife—that the duke and the duchess should each build an abbey church and foundation within the town of Caen, that of William to serve for men, that of Matilda for women; and forthwith the little town became a centre of attraction, alive with workmen, visited no doubt from time to time by the duke and duchess themselves in order that they might see how the work was going forward. The Abbaye aux Dames was the first to be consecrated. Matilda wished to hurry on the work, probably, as one writer says, from feminine impatience to complete her task. The church finished under her auspices, however, was too quickly erected to be more than a fragment, “simply so much as was necessary for the devotions of the sisterhood, ” and its real completion belongs to a day later than the time of Matilda, though her original plan was in all probability carried out to the end. William, however, took his time over the building of his church, and watched it to the finish. It was consecrated, with the exception of the two western towers, by Lanfranc in 1077, and stands to-day, in its strength, simplicity and majesty, a fitting and lasting memorial of the man who ruled England and Normandy and kept them with hand of iron.

“The church of William, vast in scale, bold and simple in its design, disdaining ornament, but never sinking into rudeness, is indeed a church worthy of its founder. The minster of Matilda, far richer even in its earliest parts, smaller in size, more delicate in workmanship, has nothing of the simplicity and grandeur and sense of proportion which marks the work of her husband. The one is the expression in stone of the imperial will of the conquering duke; the other breathes the true spirit of his loving and faithful duchess.”

The foundation of the two great abbeys soon led to a growing population outside their walls. Houses were built around the Trinité on the hilltop and around Saint Etienne in the plain; various trades sprang up, we may suppose, within the town; and a castle—always a patent of nobility to any town—was built on the hill, where William might lodge during his visits to Caen. These visits became more and more frequent until Caen was elevated almost to the rank of a royal residence; and even when Duke William became King of England, he found nothing in his new kingdom so pleasant as the little city under the hill. He built walls all round the town; he conceded to the inhabitants commercial privileges such as were enjoyed by Rouen and other large cities, together with the right of holding fairs, though the fairs of Caen never attained such celebrity as did those at Troyes; and finally, it was through the streets of Caen that his funeral train passed, bearing the Conqueror to his long rest in the church which he had built in the city which he had loved.

“The death of a king in those days came near to a break-up of all civil society. Till a new king was chosen and crowned, there was no longer a power in the land to protect or to chastise. All bonds were loosed; all public authority was in abeyance; each man had to look to his own as best he might.” Thus is described the state of feudal England and feudal Normandy after the death of the Conqueror at Rouen. A state of the utmost confusion prevailed; and apparently quite as an afterthought, masses were offered for the soul of him who so lately had kept all in so strict an order. This confusion was not the outcome of any personal disrespect to the dead king; it was simply a reaction consequent on the removal of the one great headstone, the one great reliance of the realms on both sides of the Channel. In the meantime the body of William was borne to Caen to await burial. A Norman knight of the name of Herlwin took upon himself the task of ordering funeral rites proper to the degree of such a man, since neither kinsfolk nor servants seemed willing to stir a finger. Once at Caen, however, the Conqueror’s faithful followers received their dead master with all the honour and respect which they had shown to him while living. The procession started in full pomp towards Saint Stephen’s and was met by the Abbot Gilbert, his clergy, and a number of laymen. The monks fell into file, the solemn chant arose; but suddenly the orderly progress was arrested by an event as startling as any in the lifetime of the great man they were burying. As the crowds filled the streets, a fire broke out in one of the houses; and as in the Middle Ages fires were easier to kindle and harder to quench than in later days, the flames spread along from house to house, till it seemed as though a sheet of fire were pursuing the Conqueror to his grave. Soon only the monks remained of the great company that had set out from the monastery, and they went on apparently as though nothing had happened, whilst the clergy, the lay helpers and the rest of the crowd dispersed to save their belongings from destruction, the dead man forgotten in the very real and living present need. “$1 $2 ”

At Saint Stephen’s were waiting a goodly company of bishops, Lanfranc of Canterbury, Odo of Bayeux, William’s brother; Gilbert of Evreux, the preacher; and Gilbert of Lisieux, learned in medicine; with Geoffroy de Montbray, bishop of Coutances; and the saintly pupil of Lanfranc, Anselm of Bec. The scene which followed is an interesting one. The funeral mass was sung, the body being borne along the nave and chancel up to the altar; then Gilbert of Lisieux spoke the funeral oration, setting forth, as was the custom, the tale of William’s battles and conquests, of his glory in war and his firm rule in peace, of his defence of the Church and his zeal against her enemies. “Pray, O people, that his sins may be forgiven before God, and if he had sinned against you in anything, forgive him that also yourselves.” At the close of the oration all heads turned towards Ascelin, the son of Arthur, as he stood forth, and forbade the body to be buried in land which the Conqueror had wrested from his father. “I ... claim the land; I challenge it as mine before all men, and in the name of God I forbid that the body of the robber be covered with my mould, or that he be buried within the bounds of mine inheritance.” Certainly here seemed some just impediment. An inquiry, necessarily brief because of the time and place, was held, and Ascelin’s witness proved true; and then and there a sum was paid down to the claimant. Thus the great abbey which he had built was not lawfully his own until the day of his burial.

Another memory of the Conqueror in Caen remains in the Truce of God which he imposed upon the Seigneurs of Normandy. Comparing this “Trenga Dei” with the Crusades, Freeman says: “The call to the Crusade fell in with every temper of the times; the proclamation of the Truce of God fell in with only one, and that its least powerful side. Good and bad men alike were led by widely different motives to rush to the Holy War. The men who endeavoured to obey the Truce of God must often have found themselves the helpless victims of those who despised it.” The Truce was preached first in Aquitaine in 1054, and Normandy was almost the last country to receive it. When it reached the north of France it was in a somewhat different form to that in which it had started. The early preachers began by denouncing all private warfare; but even in an age quickly fired by enthusiasm for a new movement, and more especially for a religious movement, obedience to this decree was found to be impossible. Men had hated one another too long to leap suddenly into a state of perpetual love; and the decree was modified, imposing abstention from private quarrels from Wednesday evening to Monday morning in each week. Even this seemed at first too much for the Norman spirit—“the luxury of destruction was dear to the Norman mind”—but the preaching of Bishops Richard and Hagano at length took effect, and at Caen, in 1042, was convoked the famous Council which was formally to receive the Truce, and command its observance all through the land.