The Legend of Bouvines: War, Religion and Culture in the Middle Ages

127 Pages·1990·10.844 MB·English

by  Duby, Georges

The Legend of Bouvines
War, Religion and Culture
in the Middle Ages
l
GEORGES DUBY
1/1
Translated by Catherine Tihanyi
J
f
Polity Press
I
I
I
..
This English translation © Polity Press, 1990' Contents
First published as Le dimanche de Bouvines © Gallimard, 1973.
This translation first published 1990 by Polity Press
in association with BasilBlackwell
Editorial office:
Polity Press, 65 Bridge Street, Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the
Acknowledgments Vi
purposes of criticism and review, I}o part of this publication may be
Translator's Acknowledgments vu
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or
by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
Sunday July 27, 1214 1
otherwise, without-the prior permission of the publisher.
THEEVENT 11
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the
condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, The Stageandthe Cast 13
hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent The Day 37
in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it ispublished
and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed COMMENTARY 55
on the subsequent purchaser. Peace 57
War 76
ISBN0 7456 0550 8 The Battle 110
Victory 122
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
THELEGEND 139
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the
Birth ofthe Myth 141
British Library.
Resurgences 167
APPENDICES 181
Chronology 183
SelectBibliography 188
Documents 192
Typeset in 10Y2 on 12 pt Sabon
by Hope Services (Abingdon) Ltd. Index 226
Printed in Great Britain by
T. J.Press Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall
--- ---
I:"'""'""""'--~---~-~-~~~~-~---------~-
Acknowledgments Translator's Acknowledgments
I
The authorand publisherswish to thank the following for permission The translator would like to express her heartfelt gratitude to
to reproduce illustrations: plates 1 and 10, photograph © Photo GeorgesDubyforhiskindencouragementandhispatienceinanswering
graphie Giraudon, Paris; plate 2, photograph © Boubonel; plates 3 questions, as well as to Linda Amy Kimball for the many discussions
and 11, photograph © Cliche des Musees Nationaux, Paris; plates 4 f on the translation process and historical linguistics which were
and 5, Archives Nationales, Paris; plate 6, Winchester Cathedral particularly helpful in tackling the translation of the Old French
Library, the Dean and Chapter of Winchester; plate 7, photograph documents and for her help with the copy-editing of the manuscript.
© Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin; plate ,8,The Master Inaddition the translator would like to express her thanks to Omega
and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; plate 9, photo Scientific, who very ably copy-edited the manuscript on behalf of
graph©Roger Guillemot-C.D.A. ©Edimedia; plate 12, photograph Polity Press, as well as Philippa Hurd and Alison Kelly who
©Estates ].E. Bulloz; plates 12, 13, and 14, Bibliotheque Nationale, respectively supervised the translation and the production of this
Paris; plate 16, Musee des Arts et Traditions Populaires, Paris. book.
I
•
'. SundayJuly 27, 1214
In the year 1214, July 27 fell on a Sunday. Sunday is the clayof the
Lord. It isowed Him in its entirety. Ihave known peasants who still
trembled alittle when bad weatherforced them to harveston Sunday:
they were awarethatthe wrathofheaven was upon them. Thirteenth
century parishioners perceived this wrath to be much more
threatening. The priestof their church not only forbade manuallabor
on thatday, he also tried to convincethem to totallypurify dominical
time, to guard it from the three pollutants: money, sex, and spilt
blood. That iswhy, at that time, no one willingly handled deniers on
Surrday, That is why on that day husbands, if they were pious,
avoided coming too close to their wives, and men of arms, if they
were pious, avoided drawing their swords.
And yet onSundayJuly 27, 1214, thousands of warriors broke the
ban. They fought, andfoughtintensely, near the bridge ofBouvinesin
Flanders. They were led bykings: the Kingof Germany and the King
of France. Entrusted by God to maintain the order of the world,
consecrated by bishops, half priests themselves, the kings, more so
than anyone else, ought to have respected the prescriptions of the
Church. Nonetheless on that daythey dared to attackeach other, call
their.companionsto arms, and engage instrife- notasimple skirmish
but a battle, a real battle. Moreover, it was the first battle that the
King of France had ventured to fight in more than a century. And
finally, the victory God gave to those he loved was splendid, more so
than any that could be remembered. It was a triumph worthy of
Caesar or of the Emperor Charles ofthe epics.
For all these reasons, the half-harvested fieldsof Bouvines were on
that day the locus of a memorable event. Events are like the foam of
history, bubbles large or small that burst at che surface and whose
2 SUNDAY JULY 27, 1214 SUNDAY JULY 27, 1214 3
rupture triggers waves that travel varying distances. This one has left of material is a repertory, a resource, a wellspring, and yet it is
very enduring traces that are not yet completely erased today. It is limited. It cannot grow any further because the work of the experts is
those traces that bestow existence upon it. Outside ofthem, the event done. Little by little and patiently, they have identified all these
is nothing, and it is thus with them that this book is essentially vestiges; they have collected, dusted, embalmed, cataloged, ~nd
concerned. labeled them. They have thus put them in order so that, beanng
There are two kinds of traces. One kind comprises traces in witness forever, the document would be a cenotaph to the event.
motion, widespread and countless,residing clearly or hazily, firmlyor All these documents are worn, shriveled, torn, and shabby. Some
fleetingly, in the memory of the men and women of our time. If the are barely readable. On some an original imprintcan still beseen, but
remembrance of Bouvines has not yet been completely lost, it is many only show vestiges of a primary trace that is now lost. For
because it has been carefully maintained. Ican stillseea picture from example, in the year 1214 the gate of Saint Nicolas was built in t.he
my first history book depicting, struggling on the ground and half walls of the town of Arras. In the course of at least four centunes
caught beneath a fallen horse, a sort of large beetle with fleurs-de-lis people crossing the gate could read two inscriptionson it. One, on the
painted on its wing-sheets. Its head was enclosed in a metal box and outward side, simply recorded in Latin the construction date and the
from all sides lances and hooks were threatening it. It was explained name of the contractor. The other inscriptionwas in French and thus
to me thatthis was the KingofFrance and that,despite everything, he within the grasp of more people. It presented the text of a poem:
was going to win. This picture was seen by every French person of forty-two verses rhymed in 1250, and evoking in this spot the
my age when they were-eight or ten years old and also by everyone remembrance of a Prince Louis who at,the time of the construction of
who attended school in the first forty years ofthe twentieth century the gate was Lord of Arras and Artois, and the remembrance of his
and the last twenty-five years of the nineteenth. Previously, the word father Philip, the Good King. It was explained that the latter had had
Bouvines had been unceasingly heard in cavalry quarters and in the a bone to pick with the Fleming (the people across the way), but that,
Great Army's camps. Emblem for squadrons, passwords whispered God having honored him, he succeeded in less than a day in chasing
by sentries, it was the name of a victory inserted by each succeeding the falseEmperor Otto away from the fieldof battle and in capturing
generation, in its place betweenTolbiacand Marignan, on the thread fivecounts. More than 300 knights had been killed or taken that-day,
of along litany of propriation, elation, reassurance, and consolation. and this had occurred thirty-six years earlier between Bouvines and
The echoes of these patriotic fanfares have yet to fully die out, but Tournai on a Sunday in July, five days before the beginning of
they were a little more audible when the plan for the series to which August. 'This public proclamation also added - but here memory is
this book belongs, Thirty Days that Made France, was laid down. fainter and chronology is confused - that not far from there and
The story of Bouvines is included as. the sole happy military event much earlier, at the end of the tenth century, another Kingof France
along with Poitiers. It would be tempting to catalog these traces. had vanquished another emperor, also bearing the name of Otto.
Impalpableyetexistinginthe present, they are nonetheless partofthe The Arras inscription was visible to anyone leaving the town by
representation of a collective past. It would be tempting to measure heading north; itwas acommemorativemonument, avictory bulletin
their energy, their precision, and their affective resonances at the similar to the proclamations at-the Carrousel. It stood as a trophy at
various levelsof a culture. Sucha project could only laythe foundation the frontier of the Capetian territory, facing Flanders and facing the
for the fascinating study of the consciousness of history, but it would Empire. It aimed at preservingfor posteritythe memory ofan already
requiremethods and instrumentswith which Iam notfamiliar. ThusI ancient exploitthat was stillfresh in the area, so that the feelingfor a
am concerned with other traces, those of the second kind that we community of interests and valiancy could be kindled through the
historians call documents. ages. But the inscription went further yet. It deliberately inserted.the
These traces also exist in the present. But their actuality, their triumph of Bouvines into the flow of a long stream of military glory,
presence, is of a material nature and consequently they are tangible, and, through the homonymy of the two vanquished leaders which
delineable, and measurable. Yet they are dead, the concretions of bridged 250 years, it brought together in a single proclamation two
memory. They form a base that isstill fairly sturdy, even though it is royal victories which everyone already unquestioningly looked upon
in parts quite damaged, cracked, chipped, and crumbled, and on as those of a nation.
which rest the othertraces - the kind thatliveinmemories. This stock The poem was carved inthat which ismost solid and imputrescible,
I
.
4 SUNDAY JULY 27, 1214 SUNDAY JULY 27, 1214 5
just asepitaphsare, and aimed to last tillthe end oftime: neverwould which was published in 1901. This summary is excellent. The few
the event be forgotten. Nevertheless the inscription proved to be additional clarifications that might be needed (pertaining to fighting
perishable and has long since been lost. But though the stone has techniques and estimates of the number of participants) can befound
disappeared, the text still survives thanks to at least two men who in the study byJ. F.Verbruggen, DeKrijgskunstin WestEuropa in de
attempted to preserve it. This happened at the beginning of the Middleeuwen (IX tot beguin XIV euwen), Ghent, 1954.
seventeenth century, in the time of Peiresc and the first antiquarians, Iwouldliketo lookat the traces ofthe event from adifferentangle.
and in the childhoodoferuditehistorywhich came to beconceived as The outlookofpositivisthistorydiscussed above, whose contribution
needing the backing of reliable documents. Thus the text was copied should not be underestimated, viewed the Battle of Bouvines as
down, in parts byFerry de Locre, vicar ofthe parish of Saint Nicolas specifically pertaining to the dynamics of the history of power. That
of Arras, who was collecting material for a chronicle of the Belgians, day was perceived as a knot, larger than others, on a continuous
and in its entirety by a lawyer and alderman of Arras, Antoine de chain of decisions, attempts, hesitations, successes, and failures, all
Mol, who was interested in the past of his town. The account thus lined up on a single vector - the evolution of the European states.
escaped destruction, andwithit aswellthe clearlydelineatedmemory Thiskind ofvision allocatedtwo goals for historians. First ofall, they
zone of which the gate had been the repository for more than three had to establish what had really happened on that spot on July 27,
and a half centuries. 1214, by examining the documents, much as a trial judge would, in
This turned out to be a decisive rescue as the transcriptions were order to uncover lies, extract truths, confront witnesses with each
published in two books, one printed in 1611 andthe other in 1616. other, resolve contradictions, reconstitute missing links, sort out all
Unfortunately these works became inaccessibleuntil-modern'erudition the possible hypotheses, and selectthe soundest ones. Next, they had
made the document more available. In 18S6, Victor Le Clerc to locatethe exact position ofthe "true fact" at the veryspot, at once
published the text again, but this time with a rigorous critique. resultant and eausal, lying at the juncture of the facts' ins and outs.
Today, anyone can read it on pages 433-6 of volume XXIII ofthe Yetthese goals are urrreachable, This issobecausewe allknowthat
Historielitterairede laFrance. The trace isnow withinreach amongst the fieldofvision ofall the participants in a battle, includingthe most
many others on the shelves of numerous libraries, ready for any prominent ones, is limited; they can only see a confused melee. No
potential use. In'all likelihood it will exist for a long timeto come, one has or everwillperceive initstotal reality the whirl ofathousand
probably much longer than the interest it has aroused. tangled actions which on that day, in the plain of Bouvines between
The survival of Bouvines is based on traces of this sort. Numerous noon and fivein the afternoon, came to be inextricably intertwined.'
and complementing each other, they are of diverse origins, of many And since the causes and the effects of this battle are, in the literal
different epochs, and even include the obelisk'six meters high erected meaning of the term, innumerable, their respective import cannot be
in 1863 near the battlefield. The list of all these documents is well apprehended. However, the attempt to come close to their two goals
established and they have been routinely consulted for some time. In forced the positiviststo abstract, that is,to treatthe 1214 event inthe
the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first thirty-five same manner as an event of today. Despite their striving to be
years of the twentieth, they were especially sought out by the best scientific, the positivist historians were trapped in a stubborn drive
medievalscholars ofFrance, Germany, and GreatBritain,particularly in for pinpoint exactness and failed to ward off false readings and
1881 and 1888, and again in 1913-14. At that time the accuracy of anachronisms. This was the result of focusing solely on political,
this documentation was very rigorously tested. Thus everything has I action, on its motivations and its consequences. T-hey had a tendency
been said, and said well, on the course of the battle and on <the to unconsciously perceive Philip Augustus as Corneille had perceived
network of intrigues of which it was at once the issue and the Pompeus, that is, as desire, as a will in conflict with other wills and
beginning. Consequently it would be futile to examine the record in other desires within the immutability of "human nature." They
the same spirit and to take up the investigation again: nothing new ignored the many subtle shifts that had in the course of twenty
would come of it. If the interested reader so wishes, he can consult generations imperceptibly modified the-behavior of Europeans and
these books; most of them 'are old but informative, and almost all the meaning of their actions, and which, for instance; preclude
make for a pleasantread. Ifhe isin a hurry, he can check pages 166 thinking 'of the Bouvines knight as a childhood version of the
202 of volume III of the large Histoire de France edited by Lavisse, Reichshoffen mounted soldier.
I.
6 SUNDAY JULY 27, 1214 SUNDAY JULY 27, 1214 7
. This isthe reason that led me to look at this battle and the memory Dagobert, of Pepin the Short, of the Emperor Charles,the Bald, ~f
It has left us from the perspective of an anthropologist; in other Hugh Capet, of almost all the kings of ~rance. T~IS.nec~opohs
words, to attempt to perceive both the battle and the memory as provided a striking picture of monarchI,cal, connnurty ~n ,the
wrapped up in a cultural whole different from the one which at succession of the three dynasties: the Merovingian, the Carolingian,
present molds our own relationship with the world. This aim and the Capetian. Royal power rested on these ?raves much, mo~e
necessitates three interrelated approaches. Firstly, since the event's than on Reims, the city of baptisms and coronations, It wa~ m this
imprints cannot be properly interpreted without being first put back abbey that the insignia of power were stor~d followmg the
in the culturalsystemwhich they affectedat the time, itisnecessaryto ceremonies of anointment. It was here that the kmg came to fetch
bringin everythingthat is known about this culture so as to evaluate with his own hands the patron saint's banner: the Oriflamme.
the accounts that have come down to us. But secondly, since this When, at the beginningofthe twelfthcentury,Suger, ~ho had been
event is extraordinary in itself, the exceptionally deep traces that a childhood friend of King Louis, the grandfather of Philip Augustus,
remain reveal that which is seldom or never spoken about in the was installed as the Abbot of Saint-Denis, his first concern was to
ordinary course of life. The traces bring together, within a scientific give solemn form to his conception of the major function of his
segment of space and time, a bundle of information on the ways of monastery. So as to impress this function upon the eyesof the world,
thinking and behaving in the course of a battle as well as on the Suger undertook a sumptuous reconstruction of th.e church. In .a
military function and on those who in the society of thattime werein masterly synthesiswhich gave birth to Gothicart- ~hIS royal.art, t~IS
charge of it. Bouvines offers an extremely favorable locus of "art of France" as it was called then - he combmed the imperial
observation for someone attempting to rough-hew a sociology of war aesthetic of the Moselle region with that of Neustria along with the
at the beginning of the thirteenth century in northwestern Europe. innovations in form which had just seen the light of day in southern
Finally, these traces shed light in yet another way on the cultural Gaul. Thus the new basilica represented the coming together of the
milieu where the event burst in and then outlived itself. They show whole kingdom under a sovereign who, was p~oclaimed to, be
how the perception ofthe lived event spreads out in successive waves Charlemagne's direct heir. At the same ,tIme, ~hI1e t~e .CapetIans
which in the unfoldingofspace and time gradually lose their fullness were opting to establish their main residence III Pans mstead of
and become distorted. And thus, though I can only offer 'a Orleans, Suger transferred the mission of celebr~ting th~ king's ,glory
preliminary sketch or, rather, a research proposal, Iwill also attempt with the written word from Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire to Saint-Denis-en
to observe the impact that the imaginary and oblivion have on France. He himself wrote Louis VI's biography: a vita akin to those
. information, the insidious penetration of the marvelous, of the composed for the commemoration of saints and kin~s, those God
I legendary, and, in the course of a sequence of commemorations, the chosen sacred figures, imbued with supernatural VIrtue and the
iI fate of a memory in the midst of a. changing set of mental magical power to heal the sick. After Suger, the mon,ksof the Abbey
I, representations. of Saint-Denis felt committed to relate for posterrty and for the
edification of his descendants how Louis VI, the man whose crown
I,
In keeping with this aim, I think the best way to begin is by directly they were keeping and whose bodily remains they had rece~ved,so as
I. presenting the reader with the closest, clearest, and most extensive to surround them with perpetual and salutary prayers, had m hIS day
trace ofthe event. This is provided by the prose chronicle of,William assumed royal authority to the fullest. ', .
the Breton. This writing activity became more pronounced at the begmnmg of
The text emanated from the French King's court. It is the official the reign of Philip Augustus not only because of thesteady growth of
account of the battle and it thus belongs to a historiographical the French King's power but also because, as wntten culture was
tradition which was at that time almost secular in nature. This rapidly expanding, all the Princes of the West came to understand
tradition had germinated within the Abbey of Saint-Denis. In the better and better that panegyrics brought prestige and could serve as
crypt of this monastery, in the lowest levels of this sanctuary said to , effectiveweaponsinthe eversharperrivalrywhich drove c0I?-sol~dated
have been built by Christhimself, right next to the burial place of the states to confrontation. Thus, between 1185 and 1204 a Histoiredes
patron saint who, despite the doctors' learned objections, many held I rois des Francs was compiled at Saint-Denis. There is ground to
to have been Saint Paul's disciple, were lined up the sarcophagi of believe that a sober and precise writer named Rigord worked on it.
8 SUNDAY JULY 27, 1214 SUNDAY JULY 27, 1214 9
Rigord, who came from the south of France, had probably, prior to want him at his side everywhere he went. William was there at the
his arrival at the abbey, begun to write a narrative of the ruling siegeof Chateau-Gaillard. Aschaplain,hismain duty was to chant, in
sovereign's deeds, and this perhaps was the reason for his joining the unison with others, the continuous prayer which had to envelop the
monastery. He continued to write there until 1206. He presented a royal person and inscribe each ofhisgestures into the modulat!ons of
first installment of the Gestes de Philippe Auguste in 1196 and an appropriate psalm. AtBouvines,inthe verymidst ofthe action, he
another four years later. was still chanting at Philip's back. And it ishere that he came to the
At that time, William the Breton lived in the closed circle of the fore, being the firstto turn the day's happeninginto an event. Indeed,
king's intimates. He was serving himfaithfully, went to Rome for the the victory immediatelyappearedsoimportantto the royal entourage
delicate negotiations regarding Philip's divorce and remarriage, and that, in order to satisfy his patron, William drafted a grandiose
earned the full confidence of his master who entrusted him with the account almost on the spot. Even more significantly, he proceeded to
education of his bastard, Prince Chariot. William was very rapidly insert his narrative into the direct continuation of Rigord's chronicle
rising in ranks. which anothermonk had scantily kept up till 1210. William acquired
William was one of those parvenus, so numerous at that time, who the Saint-Denis text, abbreviated it, and filled in the gaps by
had made his way through culture. The best way then open to an recounting some of the salient events he remembered which glorified
individual oflow birthwishingto climb the socialladderwas to enter his master. He thus composed the entire history of a reign.
a school so as to learn to speak and write well. Princeshad a pressing Asa result ofthis, a transferoccurredwhich callsfor agreat dealof
need for people with these skills and they paid them handsomely. attention: the historiographical project passed from monastic hands
However, the only types of 'schools in existence were those into those of a clerk, from an abbey into the king's house itself,
preparatory to the ecclesiastical professions. As the monasteries' thereby becoming a sign of the strength of a power which was
schools had by then closed their doors, the only ones remaining were gradually cutting itself loose from liturgical celebration~ and.w~s
those of the cathedrals and chapters, but these were only open to the beginning to secularize itself. The space allocated to fighting within
clergy. Thus, necessity led to joining the Church even if only to the narrative itself also evidences this transfer. One hundred and fifty
dissociate oneself from it later on by becoming librarian, adviser, years earlier, the monk Helgaud, author of a lifeof Robert the Pious,
medical doctor, or entertainer, as did so many of these turncoats of had only been interested in prayers, charities, pilgrimages, and
learning, drawn by high pay, whom prelates attempted in vain to miracles and had left to others the task of narrating the wars. In
keep in God's exclusive service. contrast' William the Breton writes of almost nothing else.And it is
Bythe ageof 12, William had leftBrittany, where opportunities for Bouvines more than anything else that he means to glorify in his
learningwere limited and mediocre,and goneto the "French" regions book. He writes more about this sole day than he does about the five
where more was taught. He first studied in Nantes and then at the preceding years. Everything else is for him only preliminary to what
best schools - those of Paris. It appears that William returned to his he sees as a fulfillment - so much so that he decides to close his first
native land to seek his fortune, but without much success. Between version of his work on the year 1214, that is, on the shock of the
the ages of thirty and forty chance finally smiled upon him: he event.
succeeded in gaining accessto the royal chapel where a good number William has thus given us a narrative that is of course contrived
of his colleagues were prospering. This domesticity of prayer and of and that constantly highlights those events likely to add to the
all the tasks requiring learning could lead to the most profitable Capetian's glory. But, apart from this, it is an honest account, as
positions.Thosewho provedto bedocile and cleverwere assured of a honest as it is possible to have from someone in service concerned
goodfuture: the Capetiancontrolledthe high clergy, and hehad total about his old age. It is a detailed, precise, clear account, not
power to place advantageously those who knew how to please him. overcluttered with rhetoric or with attempts at pleasing or showing
Thus they were all justified in expecting a comfortable canon's l offthe author'sclassicalerudition- inshort,the best typeof account.
prebend upon reaching their sixties, and they might even become f It was written in Latin, the language of the educated, of the priests
J
, bishops if they maneuvered well. because the house of the king, the anointed of God, sacred as a
1 This is precisely what William did. After the year 1200 and his bishop, isfirstof allachapel. The monks ofSaint-Denis retriev~d ~his
" Roman mission, he made himself indispensable. The king came to ecclesiastical version so as to insert it into the great compilation
1
10 SUNDAY JULY 27, 1214
whose making they pursued from reign to reign. But in 1274, the
abbot of the monastery decided to have it translated into the vulgate
along with the whole historiographical set within which William's
narrative had found its niche. This new concern with offering the
official history of the monarchy to a broader public, to all the
interestedindividuals who had not attended the schools, was the sign
of another cultural mutation. Ihave chosen to.present the textof this
to
translation here on account of its admirable, piquant, and lively
I
prose. It has been adapted very slightly so as to-rii'ake it easier to
understand but without losing its vitality.
f However,in orderto enable one and allto follow the spectacle, itis
first necessary to introduce the actors, to set the stage, to outline in a
i, verybriefprologuethe intrigueofwhich nothingissaidinthe body of
r
the text but which nonetheless led to the morning of Bouvines.
The Event
I
,
I
L
1
1
1
The Stage and the 'Cast
11
~
I!
The roles are all played bymen, aswas the custom inthe old theater,
but since the spectacle is of a military nature the characters are
perforce all male. Still, we could have expected to catch a glimpse, if
only inthe haze of the background, ofsome ofthose bands ofwomen
of various social stations whom we know at that time to have been
following all armies, including those of the crusaders. Nonetheless,
they are absent here. For William and his audience, Bouvines is
serious business. Itisa battle, a solemn occasion, a ceremony in some
ways sacred, and its image, like that of high liturgy, could only be
masculine. To these men, women are nothing but the adornments of
worldly frivolities, minor pieces in a game, in the distractions sought
by youth. Or again, they are dangerous bait, traps set by the Devil,
instruments of temptation, potential occasions for a fall. This iswhy
·1 there are no femalecharactersinthe partyofrighteousness, ofvictory
.I - thatofthe French King.The fewweseeareallinthe oppositecamp.
The Breton only makes one woman appear in his prose chronicle.
1
She is the Countess-Mother of Flanders, a kind of matron of the
opposingcamp, the elder of the bad lineage. Itisthrough her that the
title with which the good King Philip's enemy is adorned has been
transmitted. Sheisshownassomethingofawitch, adivineresshaving
t commerce with spirits and manipulating spells. This is because she
was born in the Spanish countries. Like all women originating from
these areas corrupted bythe presence of the Moors and theJews, she
adds the practice of sortilege to the perversity of her gender. Sheisa
betrayer who in the end will herself be betrayed.
In his Philippiad, which is simply a rhymed elaboration of his
chronicle, William mentions women on two more occasions, but
1 always in an underhand manner. One of his allusions istainted with
courtliness. At the start of the battle, the Flemish knight John