Aristocratic Acta in Normandy and England, c. 1150–c. 1250: The Charters and Letters of the Du Hommet Constables of Normandy

Summary

‘La gloire, la puissance, la richesse, tout était donc alors aux mains des du Hommet. Quel contraste avec la médiocrité actuelle de leurs derniers descendants!!!’

With these melodramatic words, published in 1912, a purported descendant of the constables of Normandy bemoaned the decline of his dynasty since the Middle Ages. Their author, Baron Théophile-Paul du Hommet, may have had only a spurious claim to be an offshoot of one of the most prominent families in Angevin and early Capetian Normandy. He was certainly justified, though, in his statement that ‘Few lords have left so many marks of generosity in the archives of our Norman abbeys as William du Hommet.’ This assessment of the abundance of William I du Hommet’s charters for Norman abbeys could be extended to the Hommet dynasty as a whole, to England as well as Normandy, and to acts for lay benefactors and secular clergy as well as for monasteries. The collection of nearly 400 acts forms one of the great set of muniments from an Anglo-Norman aristocratic dynasty.

Although frequently consulted, the charters of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy are still a comparatively neglected source for the history of the Anglo-Norman realm. It is true that there are important editions of the acta of the earls of Chester, Devon, Gloucester, and Hereford, and the families of Mowbray, Basset, and Paynel. There have also been projects publishing aristocratic charters by region, most notably Early Yorkshire Charters, and many acts have been made available through the editions of cartularies and muniments of particular religious houses or orders. Nevertheless, the vast majority of landowners’ charters remain unpublished, or have not been considered as collections in their own right. For the Norman comital dynasties, most of the charters of the counts of Aumale are in print, but few acts of the counts of Eu, despite the existence of a fine late-thirteenth century comital cartulary, or of the Talvas counts of Sées and Alençon after 1171, and only a selection of the acts of the counts of Évreux, primarily in their capacity as lords of Montfort-l’Amaury. The acts of many major Norman baronial families also remain unedited, such as Vernon, Courcy, Tancarville, and Marmion, while for others, such as Harcourt, Gournay, and Taisson, historians still rely upon incomplete or very antiquated editions.