Introduction (by Richard Barton): The Gesta Gervasii forms
part of the collection of bishops' lives known as the Continuations to
the Actus Pontificum Cenomannis in urbe degentium ("Acts of the
Bishops Living in Le Mans"). The Actus proper was a ninth-century
compilation of episcopal lives up to the episcopate of Aldric (died in
the 850s ..?). Subsequent scribes (all anonymous) continued what
they felt to be a laudible history of the diocese by appending continuations
to the Actus in the 1060s, the late 1090s or early 1110s, and so forth.
The chapter on Bishop Gervais seems to have been part of the first attempt
to update the older, ninth-century Actus. This first continuation,
composed by a canon of the cathedral of Le Mans from oral testimony and
from the cathedral archives, provides brief accounts of the lives of the
bishops of Le Mans from Gunherius (c.890) to Gervais (translated to the
archdiocese of Reims in 1055) and was probably composed at some point in
the early 1060s. Subsequent continuations appeared in around the
turn of the twelfth century, in the 1130s, and so forth. Because
the first continuation was redacted shortly after Bishop Gervais was translated
to the archiepiscopal see of Reims, the life of Gervais proves to be one
of the most lively, vivid, and persuasive of the early episcopal lives.
At the text of the Gesta Gervasii makes clear, the anonymous author
possessed excellent knowledge of the political and military events of Gervais'
career, as well as access to the records of Gervais's many donations to
his cathedral chapter.
The significance of the
material presented in the Gesta Gervasii is great. First,
the Gesta Gervasii provides excellent evidence of the rise of castellan
lordships in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. Indeed,
one of the most striking features of Gervais's career was the fact that
Gervais himself was master of one of these new castellan lordships.
In fact, Gervais' rise to the episcopacy, due in part to his kinship with
the previous bishop, Avesgaud, was equally due to his position as one of
the most powerful secular lords of the county. Second, we can discern
in the Gesta Gervasii two trends in the history of ecclesiastical
property: the so-called privatization of the church and the process of
repatriation of the rural churches from lay to ecclesiastical control.
Gervais, despite his lay background, won the admiration and devotion of
his clergy by returning many of the churches and altars of his lay lordship
to the control of the bishop and cathedral clergy. Third, many details
about the political history of the counties of Maine and Anjou are laid
bare by the Gesta Gervasii. This text, for instance, provides
the most substantial evidence for the brief and troubled period in which
Herbert Baco reigned as count in Maine; Herbert Baco had been the brother
of Count Hugh III (died c. 1017), the uncle of Count Herbert I Wake-Dog
(d. between 1027 and 1036), and was the great-uncle of Count Hugh IV (d.
1051). For an unspecified amount of time in the 1030s and 1040s,
Herbert Baco seems to have exercised comital authority in Maine, perhaps
as guardian for his young great-nephew, but equally possibly in his own
right. The struggles between Bishop Gervais, Herbert Baco, and Count
Geoffrey Martel of Anjou (r. 1040-1060) speak to the rapid decline in the
authority and prestige of the comital house of Maine. Indeed, for
a period in the mid 1040s it seems that Bishop Gervais himself possessed
most if not all of the comital power. Finally, the Gesta Gervasii's
account of the wars between Bishop Gervais and Count Geoffrey also illustrate
the process by which the Angevin counts came to dominate Maine; Gervais's
eventual capture and imprisonment through Geoffrey's treachery provided
a vacuum in Maine into which the counts of Anjou stepped for most of the
1050s.
Once he had been restored most gloriously to the cathedra, Gervais gave gifts to his canons such as none of his predecessors had done; since these are worthy to recite, we committed them to memory. First he gave to it [his cathedral and its canons] half of the proceeds from the altar of saints Julian the Bishop and Gervais and Prothaise the martyrs, as well as [half the proceeds] from all the altars of the church of Le Mans. Truly he gave to them all tithes [decimas], all rents, and all suburbs belonging to him [omnia suburbana ad illum pertinentia], which hitherto the archiclavii [Note 4] used to possess. After this, he confirmed in perpetuity the altars [Note 5] of all the churches which they [the canons] had held to that point as well as the altars of those which they might hold in the future.
From his own patrimony, moreover, the same bishop donated the villa named Bener located near the city on the River Huisne, along with 12 arpents of vines planted there. He also gave them a certain church located in the territory of Loudun called Parigné-l'Évêque, half to be held while he was alive, and the rest to come after his death. Furthermore [he] also [remitted] all the customs and exactions belonging to the castle of Chateau-du-Loir that had been paid to his father from the lands of the canons. He also granted to the canons his father's hall [aulam], which is located in the same castle [ie. Chateau-du-Loir] in the eastern corner. [He gave this hall, moreover, together] with all the seigneurial plots joined to it on every side, both inside and outside the wall, and with the wood that is outside the wall.
The zeal of the bishop restored those goods of the canons that had been unjustly alienated, namely the church of St. Ouen in Belin, with the fields located in the same parish; and the church of St Martin of Laigné; and the land of that Wastina; and the church of Mulsanne within the Quinte of Le Mans; and the church of St Aubin with its estates residing in the same parish; and the villa of Ville-Germain; and Marcé. [He also restored], in the county of Maine, the church of Assé with its lordship [cum potestate]; and in the same county, the church of Sainte-Jammes-sur-Sarthe; also the church of Proiliaco with the same lordship [cum eadem potestate], called Curteauram, and two mills on the river Sarthe located at the base of the walls of the city. Of all of these things that were acquired, some were given from the bishop's hereditary right and some were commuted or redeemed by the aforesaid bishop; all were perpetually corroborated with royal authority and were stamped with the seal of Henry, king of the French [Note 6].
Once Lord Gervais was residing in the see, Herbert Baco began to irritate him. So the bishop, seeing that neither he nor the king could defend his diocese from Bacco, sought something from King Henry that he formerly would never have sought: namely, that Henry give the diocese to Geoffrey, count of the Angevins [Note 7], only for his lifetime, so that he might defend it more freely from the Manceau count. Certainly when he [Geoffrey?] died, it would return to the royal hand. This deed, [however], turned to evil.
Hearing that Gervais had acted in this way, Herbert Bacco was stung by envy and accused Gervais before Count Geoffrey, frequently begging the count to drive the bishop from the bishopric and from his paternal estates [honore paterno] if at all possible. When Bishop Gervais heard this, he began negotiations with the residents of his diocese and the lords of the county [heroibus terrae], advising them to disinherit Bacho, eject him from the city, and endow the correct heir, Hugh son of Herbert, a youth of good quality, with the entire county. This was done. After Hugh had been raised to the apex of the county, Herbert Baco was made a monk. [Note 8]
Bishop Gervais loved Hugh, whom he had raised from the holy font, so much that he procured for him a wife, namely Bertha, a noblewoman and the former wife of Alan, count of the Bretons. This matter was greatly displeasing to Count Geoffrey, as the result of the matter proved. Hugh departed with his knights to fetch his wife. Geoffrey, however, burned Chateau-du-Loir with fire. On account of these events, the two hated each other ever after with a great hatred; that is, the count hated the bishop and the bishop hated the count. Seeing that Count Hugh, at the advice of lord Bishop Gervais, had married a very strong woman to his [Geoffrey's] ruin and detriment, Geoffrey put Judas in his breast [Judam portans in pectore] and deceitfully sent for Bishop Gervais, [but only] so that he could capture him. Once Gervais had been betrayed, Geoffrey put him in prison and held him there in chains for seven years, hoping to acquire Chateau-du-Loir as a result. But it [his treachery] profited him not at all, since the castle-knights [milites castellani] continued to defend Chateau-du-Loir ably.
While these castellans were holding out, and while Bishop Gervais was still languishing in chains, Hugh the Manceau count died. Lord Gervais was greatly saddened by the death of the count, while, on the contrary, Count Geoffrey rejoiced. Once Count Hugh had been buried according to the law of Christians, Count Geoffrey took up the honor [of Maine] for ten years [Note 9]. The citizens of Le Mans expelled the weeping wife of Hugh with her children out one door, and allowed the rejoicing Count Geoffrey to enter. When Bishop Gervais had heard what the Manceau lords had done, fearful of his life, he held out no hope other than mere survival: whether he wanted to or not, he handed over Chateau-du-Loir [to Geoffrey].
Once these things had occurred, Count Geoffrey permitted Gervais to leave his prison, yet subject to the oath that so long as Gervais himself should live he would not enter the city of Le Mans. When the bishop saw that he could enter neither his city nor his castle, he went to William, count of Normandy and, lamenting, reported what Geoffrey had done to him and how Geoffrey had betrayed him. Count William heard this and, moved by pity, gave Gervais gold and silver, strong castles, and the most lavish gifts. While Gervais was tarrying in Normandy with the count, however, it happened that Guy [de Chatillon], archbishop of the church of Reims, died. Once King Henry heard that Guy had died, he gave the archbishopric to Bishop Gervais, who joyfully received it after he had ruled the Manceau church for twenty years [Note 10]
NOTES:
1. The genealogy of the counts of Maine becomes complicated in the
first decades of the eleventh century. Count Hugh III died c. 1015;
he was succeeded by Count Herbert I, known as "Wake-Dog", who was probably
his son. This Herbert Wake-Dog features extensively in the chapter
of the Continuations of the Actus Pontificum devoted to Gervais' predecessor,
Bishop Avesgaud. The Herbert in question here (Herbert Baco) is an
almost otherwise unknown uncle of this first Herbert. As is related
in the Gesta Gervasii, Herbert Baco held power for only a short time and
was replaced by Count Hugh IV, a son of Count Herbert I Wake-Dog.
2. We have no firm date of accession to the episcopacy for Gervais. His predecessor, Bishop Avesgaud, died in 1036, but Gervais' first attested charter appearance does not come until 1038. Perhaps this gap reflects the two years in which Herbert Baco denied him access to Le Mans.
3. Gervais was a powerful secular lord in his own right. His father, Hamo, possessed one of the earliest-attested ‘private' castles in Maine, Chateau-du-Loir. The lords of Chateau-du-Loir were extremely influential for the rest of the eleventh century, and dominated most of the south-central portion of the county.
4. According to Niermeyer, an ‘archiclavus' was an episcopal or monastic dignitary.
5. The Latin reads: "Post haec, perpetualiter concessit altaria omnium ecclesiarum quas hactenus habuerunt, vel amodo habituri sunt." Undoubtedly ‘altars' refers to the set of parochial revenues and rights attached to each parish church. See Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minor, sub ‘altare'.
6. King Henry I of France, reigned 1030-1060.
7. Count Geoffrey Martel, ruled Anjou 1040-1060. Cf. the Gesta consulum Andegavorum.
8. Again, this Hugh (Count Hugh IV) was the son of the late Count Herbert I Wake-Dog, not the son of Herbert Baco. Herbert Baco had been banished to a monastery by 1046-1047, when Hugh IV appears in a charter exercising comital authority on his own.
9. Count Hugh IV died in 1051, while Geoffrey Martel died in 1060. These dates lend credence to the Actus' claim that Geoffrey ruled in Maine for ten years.
10. Gervais became Archbishop of Reims in 1055, and ruled there until 1067. If the chronology provided by the Actus is accurate, we may suppose that Gervais surrendered Chateau-du-Loir in 1051 and spent the next four years until his translation to Reims in Normandy.
SOURCE:
Actus Pontificum Cenomannis in Urbe Degentium, ed. Gustave Busson
and Ambrose Ledru (Le Mans, 1900), pp. 362-367. Translated by Richard
Barton
REFERENCES:
Robert Latouche, "Essai de critique sur la continuation des Actus Pontificum
Cenomannis in Urbe Degentium," Le Moyen Age 11 (1907): 225-275.