5 - Sovereigns, Styles, and Scribes

Summary

ALTHOUGH Duke Richard I acknowledged Hugh Capet as his lord (senior) in 968, and although Hugh's father had supported Richard's rule during the 940s and 950s, all the sources at our disposal indicate that from c. 945 until 1144 the dukes ruled Normandy without reference to the kings of the French. But although they did not recognize the kings’ authority within their duchy, the dukes did not deny that Normandy lay within their kingdom. Indeed, the dukes seem often to have involved the kings in the arrangements made for their successions, presumably to make them more secure, which in itself was an acknowledgement of royal authority over their land. Furthermore, on occasion, as during the reign of Richard II, they sent contingents to serve in royal armies. As such actions tended to promote the dukes’ power and prestige to a wide Frankish audience, they might have performed them simply to enhance their standing among their peers, but it is equally possible that such service was an obligation that resulted from the oaths of fidelity (not necessarily homage) that the dukes continued to swear to successive French monarchs down to the 1060s – although both Dudo of Saint-Quentin and the anonymous author of the Breuis relatio argued that this was not the case.

A king's ability to demand service, or to take jurisdiction over a lawsuit, was not the automatic result of a tenth-, eleventh-, or early-twelfth-century oath of fidelity, however. To some extent, it depended on whether the land was held as a benefice or fief or owned as an alod. That is why Dudo was so keen to imagine that Normandy was given to Rollo, after some negotiations, as an alod, and that is why the nature of the relationship established between Rollo and Charles the Simple at Saint-Clair-sur-Epte in 911 has been considered so often in histories of Normandy – although as we are entirely reliant on Dudo of Saint-Quentin's account of this meeting the conclusions that have been reached are necessarily tenuous and have depended on each historian's view of Dudo's reliability and intentions. The question is reconsidered below, in the first section of this chapter, where the focus is necessarily once again on Dudo's narrative and the trajectory of Franco-Norman relations depicted in it.