University of Virginia Library

II.1. CHAPTER I

OF THE KING'S BIRTH AND CORONATION, AND HOW THE COUNT OF BRITTANY AND THE BARONS OF FRANCE REBELLED AGAINST HIM.

IN the name of Almighty God, having heretofore written part of the good words and teachings of Saint Louis, our King, we will next begin upon his deeds, in the name of God and of himself.

He was born, as I have heard him say, on the day of Saint Mark the Evangelist, after Easter. On that day, in many places they carry the Cross in procession, and in France it is called " Black Cross Day," and this was, as it were, a foreshadowing of the great host of people who died on those two crusades: to wit, on the Egyptian crusade, and on that other, where he died at Carthage; for very great sorrowing there was in this world, and very great rejoicing there is in Heaven over those, who on those two pilgrimages died true crusaders.

He was crowned on the first Sunday in Advent. The mass for that Sunday begins: " To Thee have I lifted up my soul" and what follows after. In God he trusted firmly till his death; for at the point of death, with his last words he called on God and His Saints, especially upon my lord Saint James and my lady Saint Geneviève.

Great need had he in childhood that God should guard him; as by the good teachings of his mother, who taught him to love and believe in God, and set men of religion about him. Child as he was, she used to make him repeat his Hours and hear the lessons on Feast-days, and often told him as he recorded later, that she were rather he were dead than that he should commit a deadly sin.

Great need had he in his youth of God's aid; for his mother was from Spain, and had neither kindred nor friends in all the realm of France; and the barons of France, seeing the King but a child, and his mother a foreign woman, made the Count of Boulogne the King's uncle their leader, and looked upon him as actually their liege lord.

After the King was crowned, there were some of the barons who requested the Queen to grant them

certain large territories; and because she would do none of it, they gathered themselves together, all the barons, at Corbeuil. And the holy King told me, that he and his mother, who were at Montl'hery, durst not return to Paris until the men of Paris came under arms to fetch them. And he told me, how, all the way from Montl'hery to Paris, the road was thronged with people, armed and unarmed, all loudly praying Christ to give him health and long life, and to defend and keep him from his enemies.

At this parliament of the barons at Corbeuil, so it is said, those of them that were present decided, that the good knight Count Peter of Brittany should rebel against the King, and further, that when the king should summon them to march against the Count, they should attend in person and each bring only two knights with him; and this to see whether the Count of Brittany would be able to crush the Queen, she being but a foreign woman, as you have heard. And many people say, that the Count would have crushed the Queen and King too, if God had not come to the King's aid in this strait. But by God's grace, Count Tibald of Champagne, (the same who later

became King of Navarre) came to serve the King with three hundred knights, and by his aid, the Count of Brittany was brought to the King's mercy, so that, to make peace, he was obliged to relinquish to the King the county of Anjou (so it is said), and the county of Le Perche.

Now I must leave my subject for a while, in order to rehearse certain matters that you shall now learn. We will say therefor, that the good Count, Henry the Generous (of Champagne) had two sons by the Countess Mary, sister to the King of France and to Richard of England, of whom the eldest was named Henry, and the younger Tibald. This elder one, Henry, took the cross and went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, what time King Philip and King Richard besieged Acre and took it. So soon as Acre was taken, King Philip returned to France, for which he was much blamed; but King Richard stayed in the Holy Land, and did many great deeds, so that the Saracens feared him mightily: for it is written in the book of the Holy Land that when the Saracen children cried, the women would scold them, saying: " Hush! King Richard is coming! " to quiet them. And when the horses of

the Saracens or Bedouins shied at a bush, their riders would say: " Do you fancy that it is King Richard? "

This King Richard used his influence to give to Count Henry of Champagne, who had remained with him, the Queen of Jerusalem, who was direct heir to the kingdom. By the said Queen, Count Henry had two daughters, of whom the first was Queen of Cyprus, and the other was given to Lord Erard of Brienne, from whom has sprung a great lineage, as may be seen in France and Champagne. It is not of Lord Erard of Brienne's wife that I wish to speak now, but about the Queen of Cyprus.

After the King had crushed Count Peter of Brittany, all the barons of France were so stirred up against Count Tibald of Champagne, that they resolved to send for the Queen of Cyprus, she being daughter to the eldest son of the house of Champagne, in order to disinherit Count Tibal, he being son to the second son.

Some amongst them intervened to make peace between Count Peter and the said Count Tibald and the upshot of the negotiations was, that Count Tibald promised to take Count Peter's daughter

to wife. A day was fixed for the Count of Champagne to espouse the damsel; and they were to bring her for the wedding to a certain abbey at Prémoutré which is close to Chateau Thierry, and is called, I believe, Val Secret. The barons of France, who were nearly all of kin to Count Peter, took much trouble in escorting the damsel to Val Secret for the wedding, and sent word to the Count of Champagne who was at Chateau Thierry. But whilst the Count of Champagne was on his way to get married, there came to him my lord Geoffrey de la Chapelle from the King with a letter of credentials, and said as follows: "Sir Count, the King has heard, that you have covenanted with Count Peter of Brittany to take his daughter in marriage. Wherefor the King sends you word, that, unless you wish to lose whatever possessions you have in the realm of France, you will not do this thing; for you know that the Count of Brittany has used the King worse than any man alive." And the Count of Champagne, by the advice of those that were with him, turned back again to Chateau Thierry.

NOTE TO CHAPTER I

Louis was crowned a month after his accession by the Bishop of Soissons (the see of Rheims being vacant). His mother had the sole wardship of him, which roused the jealousy of the principal barons. Peter Mauclerc (Count of Brittany) and Hugh le Brun (Count of La Marche) were obliged to submit, after Tibald of Champagne had deserted them. When they marched the next year into Champagne to revenge themselves on Tibald, Matthew Paris says that their pretext was that Tibald had been guilty of high treason in being Queen Blanche's paramour, and conspiring with her to poison her husband, Louis VIII. (He certainly seems to have quarrelled with Louis VIII, for he left him and went home without leave just before Louis' death, during his crusade against the Albigenses.) Joinville gives no hint of this. Throughout his book he avoids scandal, and in any case could hardly have mentioned this in a book intended for the great-grandson of both Queen Blanche and Count Tibald.

Tibald IV was a posthumous child, and during the regency of his mother, Countess Blanche, the above-mentioned Erard of Brienne claimed the county in right of his wife Philippa, and waged war on Champagne, aided and abetted by Simon de Joinville, the father of the author. Tibald succeeded to the kingdom of Navarre on the death of his mother's brother, Sancho VI.