William the Conqueror [62]
made in the lands east of Flanders. In the troubled state of Germany, when Henry the Fourth was striving with the Saxons, both sides seem to have looked to the Conqueror of England with hope and with fear. On this matter our English and Norman authorities are silent, and the notices in the contemporary German writers are strangely unlike one another. But they show at least that the prince who ruled on both sides of the sea was largely in men's thoughts. The Saxon enemy of Henry describes him in his despair as seeking help in Denmark, France, Aquitaine, and also of the King of the English, promising him the like help, if he should ever need it. William and Henry had both to guard against Saxon enmity, but the throne at Winchester stood firmer than the throne at Goslar. But the historian of the continental Saxons puts into William's mouth an answer utterly unsuited to his position. He is made, when in Normandy, to answer that, having won his kingdom by force, he fears to leave it, lest he might not find his way back again. Far more striking is the story told three years later by Lambert of Herzfeld. Henry, when engaged in an Hungarian war, heard that the famous Archbishop Hanno of Koln had leagued with William BOSTAR--so is his earliest surname written- -King of the English, and that a vast army was coming to set the island monarch on the German throne. The host never came; but Henry hastened back to guard his frontier against BARBARIANS. By that phrase a Teutonic writer can hardly mean the insular part of William's subjects.
Now assuredly William never cherished, as his successor probably did, so wild a dream as that of a kingly crowning at Aachen, to be followed perhaps by an imperial crowning at Rome. But that such schemes were looked on as a practical danger against which the actual German King had to guard, at least shows the place which the Conqueror of England held in European imagination.
For the three or four years immediately following the surrender of Ely, William's journeys to and fro between his kingdom and his duchy were specially frequent. Matilda seems to have always stayed in Normandy; she is never mentioned in England after the year of her coronation and the birth of her youngest son, and she commonly acted as regent of the duchy. In the course of 1072 we see William in England, in Normandy, again in England, and in Scotland. In 1073 he was called beyond sea by a formidable movement. His great continental conquest had risen against him; Le Mans and all Maine were again independent. City and land chose for them a prince who came by female descent from the stock of their ancient counts. This was Hugh the son of Azo Marquess of Liguria and of Gersendis the sister of the last Count Herbert. The Normans were driven out of Le Mans; Azo came to take possession in the name of his son, but he and the citizens did not long agree. He went back, leaving his wife and son under the guardianship of Geoffrey of Mayenne. Presently the men of Le Mans threw off princely rule altogether and proclaimed the earliest COMMUNE in Northern Gaul. Here then, as at Exeter, William had to strive against an armed commonwealth, and, as at Exeter, we specially wish to know what were to be the relations between the capital and the county at large. The mass of the people throughout Maine threw themselves zealously into the cause of the commonwealth. But their zeal might not have lasted long, if, according to the usual run of things in such cases, they had simply exchanged the lordship of their hereditary masters for the corporate lordship of the citizens of Le Mans. To the nobles the change was naturally distasteful. They had to swear to the COMMUNE, but many of them, Geoffrey for one, had no thought of keeping their oaths. Dissensions arose; Hugh went back to Italy; Geoffrey occupied the castle of Le Mans, and the citizens dislodged him only by the dangerous help of the other prince who claimed the overlordship of Maine, Count Fulk of Anjou.
If Maine was to have a master from outside, the lord of Anjou hardly
Now assuredly William never cherished, as his successor probably did, so wild a dream as that of a kingly crowning at Aachen, to be followed perhaps by an imperial crowning at Rome. But that such schemes were looked on as a practical danger against which the actual German King had to guard, at least shows the place which the Conqueror of England held in European imagination.
For the three or four years immediately following the surrender of Ely, William's journeys to and fro between his kingdom and his duchy were specially frequent. Matilda seems to have always stayed in Normandy; she is never mentioned in England after the year of her coronation and the birth of her youngest son, and she commonly acted as regent of the duchy. In the course of 1072 we see William in England, in Normandy, again in England, and in Scotland. In 1073 he was called beyond sea by a formidable movement. His great continental conquest had risen against him; Le Mans and all Maine were again independent. City and land chose for them a prince who came by female descent from the stock of their ancient counts. This was Hugh the son of Azo Marquess of Liguria and of Gersendis the sister of the last Count Herbert. The Normans were driven out of Le Mans; Azo came to take possession in the name of his son, but he and the citizens did not long agree. He went back, leaving his wife and son under the guardianship of Geoffrey of Mayenne. Presently the men of Le Mans threw off princely rule altogether and proclaimed the earliest COMMUNE in Northern Gaul. Here then, as at Exeter, William had to strive against an armed commonwealth, and, as at Exeter, we specially wish to know what were to be the relations between the capital and the county at large. The mass of the people throughout Maine threw themselves zealously into the cause of the commonwealth. But their zeal might not have lasted long, if, according to the usual run of things in such cases, they had simply exchanged the lordship of their hereditary masters for the corporate lordship of the citizens of Le Mans. To the nobles the change was naturally distasteful. They had to swear to the COMMUNE, but many of them, Geoffrey for one, had no thought of keeping their oaths. Dissensions arose; Hugh went back to Italy; Geoffrey occupied the castle of Le Mans, and the citizens dislodged him only by the dangerous help of the other prince who claimed the overlordship of Maine, Count Fulk of Anjou.
If Maine was to have a master from outside, the lord of Anjou hardly