Introduction

The East African Revival was a conversionary movement. It demanded that people make radical breaks with their pasts in order to move out of spiritual darkness and into the light of salvation. Balokole believed that the lives of the “unsaved” (which included baptized members of mission churches who had not yet joined the revival) were shrouded in secretive darkness, while those who were saved lived lives characterized by openness and fellowship—the light of salvation. For Balokole, sin, particularly hidden and undisclosed sin, inhibited the life of salvation, and they believed that the only way to rid one's life of sin was to confess it publicly. The revival sought rupture in converts’ lives, and it did so around a discourse of sinfulness and salvation. While the primary targets of revivalist preaching were members of mission churches, there were also many who joined the revival who were not previously Christians. In either case, revival converts had to describe the fundamental discontinuity between their past and present selves in their testimonies, which were a constitutive part of converting. For Balokole, baptism, catechesis, and ordination were no guarantors of salvation because these things did not necessarily mean that one had truly repented of—or truly broken with—one's past. Balokole were not interested in putting “new wine in old wineskins.” Instead, they demanded that converts burn the “old wineskins.” Revivalists’ rhetoric of radical discontinuity helped converts to create a new identity as a Mulokole, or saved person, and it is only from this ruptured selfunderstanding that the choices Balokole made with respect to their families, homes, schools, and jobs make sense. Through practices like confession, “putting things right,” and “walking in the light,” Balokole were securing the means of salvation apart from priests, missionaries, and mission churches, even as they largely remained within those churches, as I argued in chapter 1.

Sin

Balokole wanted to be rid of sin; they needed to expurgate it from their lives. At large conventions, Balokole would often repeat the phrase, “Sin is bad, very bad!” Balokole believed that sin separated them from salvation and characterized a life lived in pagan darkness. They believed that sin could only be washed out of their lives by the blood of Jesus.

Robert Curthose, 1087–1106 (with the Norman rule of William Rufus, 1096–1100)

IT is difficult to gain a clear picture of Robert Curthose as either a man or a ruler. Almost all the writers that wrote about his reign did so after he had lost his duchy, and that coloured their portraits of him. As God had chosen to punish Curthose and to promote Henry I, the monastic chroniclers in particular were left to find suitable explanations for these divine actions. They found them in Curthose's ineptitude and/or his failure to protect the Church, or else in his refusal to take the throne of Jerusalem when it was offered to him at the end of the First Crusade. Thus Orderic Vitalis, who wrote by far the fullest account of the reign, criticized Curthose's sloth, his prodigality, and lack of foresight, and remarked upon the duke's inability to garrison his subjects’ castles, uphold the Truce of God, and do justice in accordance with the obligations of Christian rulership and, more specifically, with the lists of ducal rights laid down in the Consuetudines et iusticie of 1091 or 1096. Orderic's condemnation of Curthose's rule was thus carefully constructed and intended to chime with contemporaries’ expectations of ducal power – especially after their long experience of Henry I's effective government. But some secular writers took a different tack and criticized the infidelity of Robert's supporters. Thus Serlo of Bayeux, writing immediately after Henry I's siege of Bayeux in 1105, condemned the defenders of the city for their failure to protect the city, but did not condemn Curthose in any way. Wace, writing in the 1170s, went even further. He portrayed Henry I as an unjustified usurper – although precisely why he did so may be obscured by the fact that his poem stops in its tracks at this point. Not everyone remembered Curthose as a poor ruler, then. To some, he was a victim of treachery and his brother's overweening ambition.

Nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century historians who first sketched out the shape of the reign were more inclined to follow Orderic than those quieter voices who defended Curthose's record.

THE dukes’ power – their ability to make people do what they wanted, regardless of any resistance – was grounded in legitimacy and inheritance, and reinforced by their success in establishing autonomous rule and hegemony over the people living within the confines of the duchy. The recognition of the dukes’ position was also the result of physical strength and diplomacy – carrot and stick – as well as a decision on the part of his greater subjects that there was more to be gained by siding with the duke than going against him. But it was also the result of appearances and environment. The duke was successful and powerful in part at least because he looked successful and powerful. A man surrounded by warriors and bishops, who could eat from gold and silver vessels, and pass such objects to his followers as rewards, was a man who deserved respect and who should not be crossed. That respect required a show of deference and submission, appropriate behaviour, and bearing. A failure to perform as required might smack of rebellion and result in a demonstration of anger and coercive force. At that point the protagonists would discover whether appearances were deceptive. But up to that point the mirage of power remained intact.

The previous chapter explored the duke: the succession to the duchy, questions of competition and legitimacy, and the executive authority that the duke wielded. This chapter goes on to look at the court, defined by Stuart Airlie as the king (here the duke), his family, and the personnel around them together with the institutions (such as the chapel) and buildings that housed and served them. In particular, it is concerned with how the dukes could use the court to broadcast and maintain their authority over the duchy as a whole.

The discussion begins with a consideration of the settings for the dukes’ courts, before moving on to explore who went to them, and what they saw and heard when they got there, through an examination (separately) of the ducal acta and the narratives. As has been discussed above, and will be considered further below, the acta in particular do not perhaps tell us what we expect them to. They tell us rather less about ducal power than might be thought and rather more about beneficiaries’ views of it and their resulting concerns about the security of the gifts they received.

THIS is a book about the creation, maintenance, rule, and governance of the duchy of Normandy and the power of the dukes who led that enterprise. It examines not only the structures that the dukes inherited or developed that allowed them to establish their authority across their territory, but also how the dukes won and then kept the loyalties of the lords who resided within their borders, how those lords manifested their loyalty to their ruler, and how they perceived and promoted it, too. In other words, this is a book that aims to look at the authority of the duke both as it was imposed from the top down and as it was recognized and strengthened from the bottom up.

Sources and approach

It is well known that contemporary sources for tenth-century Normandy are seriously lacking. Some information is to be found in the Annals of Flodoard of Reims and rather less in the later, but still tenth-century, Histories of Richer of Reims. There is a brief mention of Rollo and his companions in an authentic act of Charles the Simple of 918 and of Richard I in an altogether more dubious diploma of Lothair V of 966. There are four authentic acts signed by Duke Richard, two of which record his gifts to his own foundations at Evreux and Fécamp, and to which might perhaps be added two eleventh-century acts that preserve grants that are said to have been made by tenth-century dukes. This is not much to go on, and while it might be hoped that archaeological and place-name evidence might provide an additional foundation on which to build, that evidence is just as slight, ambiguous, and misleading as the written sources that purport to inform us of the relevant events.

One result of this absence of evidence is that while this book aims to look at the development of Normandy and of the dukes’ authority from 911, many of the topics and trends explored in Chapters 4 through 11 can only be perceived, and still dimly at that, from the second decade of the eleventh century.

Richard II, 996–1026

ALTHOUGH the evidence can be interpreted in different ways, the interpretation offered in the previous chapter would have Richard I expand the reach of his authority to cover an area that stretched from the Bresle to the Drome, and from the Channel coast to the very south of the Lieuvin and perhaps even into Houlme. He had also grabbed one isolated pocket of demesne, and thus influence, in the north-west of the Cotentin between Les Pieux and Brix, and another in the Avranchin, where he held a cluster of vills along the coast from Saint-Jeanle- Thomas to Mont-Saint-Michel (see Maps 2 and 3). These pockets of Norman influence in the west, which almost certainly owed their origin to seaborne raids, had become loosely joined to the bulk of Richard's dominions as a result of his marriage to Gunnor, which brought a great swathe of the central and southern Cotentin under his (indirect) sway. This expansion of the duke's authority, as well as the appearance of all seven bishops of the province of Rouen at Richard's court in 990, allowed Richer of Reims to write of a grant to Ketil of the whole area covered by the province of Rouen in the second half of the 990s, although he thereby implied that the duke's authority ran evenly across the whole of this area, which was very far from being the case.

Such expansion was bound to cause resistance, and so it was that when the long-lived and well-established Richard I died, the metal of his untried son was tested almost immediately. Assuming that the story was not inserted into the Gesta Normannorum ducum solely to provide a precedent for the treatment of the burgesses of Alençon c. 1052, it seems that a ‘peasants’ revolt’ broke out in unspecified regions of the duchy c. 1000. ‘Throughout every part of Normandy the peasants unanimously formed many assemblies and decided to live according to their own wishes, such that in respect both of short cuts through the woods and of the traffic of the rivers with no bar of previously established right in their way, they might follow laws of their own.

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.

This book has put forward an explanation of how it was that the dukes of the Normans came to take and then hold the territory that became known as Normandy from the 1020s and won and maintained the fidelity of the lords and lesser men living on it.

To dominate their neighbours and to turn at least some of them into their subjects, as well as to gain a degree of control over them, the dukes needed wealth – or at least the promise of it – and a good reputation for leadership, success in war, generosity, and justice. These attributes attracted warriors and others seeking to make a career through service to a lord. Thus, or so it may be supposed, Rollo had demonstrated his right to rule those Vikings who had come with him to Francia. His successes ensured that his warriors remained with him, his leadership saw Rouen fall to him, and the reputation he gained as a result of his successes, military, diplomatic, and economic, brought King Charles to the negotiating table, so that c. 911 he legitimized Rollo's de facto possession of Rouen by granting it to him along with the surrounding district.

King Charles's grant c. 911, as well as the grants of 924 and 933 did not mean that the dukes immediately gained power over the whole of the territory concerned. They did not map out a ready-made territory of Normandy. Equally, the establishment over ducal power across what would come to be Normandy did not follow a smooth trajectory. There were defeats and reverses. The assassination of William Longsword threw the future of Rollo's line into doubt. It seems that Rouen was almost lost to the Franks, just three years or so after the Loire Vikings had lost Nantes to the Bretons. Indeed, it is possible that the Vikings of the Seine only retained their hold on Rouen because the remaining Vikings of the Loire, who had perhaps taken shelter in the Cotentin and Bessin, could come to their aid. But even though the Normans survived the turmoil of the period between 942 and 945, still Richard I had to survive the attacks of King Lothair and Count Theobald of Chartres.

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid: for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

Romans, 13:1–4

Introduction

The East African Revival's message of a radical discontinuity between past and present set people moving from spiritual darkness to the light of salvation; but it also put converts into motion, prodding them to traverse the interlacustrine region, often with small teams of fellow revivalists, spreading this message of salvation. These forms of movement, spiritual and physical, have often been noted in previous histories of the revival. What has been less considered is how the revival movement itself was embedded within larger trends of movement and migration in late colonial East Africa. The revival gave identity and meaning to those experiencing dislocation from the changes and challenges associated with migration in late colonial East Africa. The East African Revival, therefore, is part of the spiritual history of migration.

The revival expanded during a period of significant population shifts in the interlacustrine region, and revivalists were far from being the only people who were on the move there. Colonial labor conscription in the early twentieth century, the spread of epidemics around Lake Victoria, the growth of towns and cities, and the large number of short-term agricultural laborers all impacted village life throughout the region. The history of the revival, therefore, is inextricable from the various forms and types of movement that occurred before and after the movement emerged in the mid-1930s. Unlike various “ethnic nationalists,” who sought to reify ethnic particularity by codifying the normative behaviors of their “tribe” or “people,” revivalists viewed the dislocation that resulted from these regional population shifts as an opportunity, not a problem. Revivalists saw a new vision for the future in the midst of these migrations, and their message of moving from darkness to light caught the ears of those who were themselves on the move.

Conversion to the revival movement connected those who had migrated or who were experiencing the ramifications of migration, emphasizing cosmopolitan fellowship over parochial identities. The revival had a particular appeal to those who worked in the new professions, such as schoolteachers, clerks, and nurses—people who had encountered the disruptions brought by the colonial order of things. Revivalists believed fellowship was for anyone who would confess their sins and live a life of radical openness with other “brethren,” regardless of ethnicity, race, or language. Though this cosmopolitan vision was an ideal that was not universally or uniformly upheld, it nevertheless reflects that the revival was itself a product of migration, and revivalists developed a spiritual lifestyle for people on the move in a colonial world.

FOR the monks of Le Bec, as the above quotation shows, the requirement that a ruler should bring peace and do justice was paramount. In that sentiment, they were entirely in accord with the mainstream of medieval thought. Isidore of Seville had highlighted the need for kings to do justice, as had Alcuin, Wipo, and Fulbert of Chartres who, about a century before the monks of Le Bec wrote their act, had opined that the position of the king ‘makes him the fountain-head of justice’. Good rulers were supposed to bring peace and justice to their subjects, and those who were characterized as good rulers were made to perform that role by those who wrote about them. Thus, William of Poitiers might remark that ‘at last a most joyful day dawned splendidly for all who desired and eagerly awaited peace and justice. Our duke … was armed as a knight.’ Conversely, the construction of a negative image of Robert Curthose required that he should be unable to do justice, even though his military ability could be acknowledged.

The purpose of this chapter is to establish how the dukes went about maintaining the peace in their duchy and doing justice on those who broke it – ambitions which constitute two sides of the same coin. To pursue this objective, the chapter has been broken down into sections that divide justice into offences on one hand and disputes over property on the other.5 That division is not intended to suggest that contemporaries thought in more modern terms of criminal law and civil law, nor that the duke was supposed to act in one sphere but not the other. William of Poitiers, for one, made it clear that the duke was to do justice regarding all sorts of trespasses: ‘By his strict discipline (i.e. justice) and by his laws robbers, homicides, and evil-doers have been driven out of Normandy.’