Louis VII and the Towns

Chapter 4 All Citizens High and Low: Louis VII and the Towns Steven Isaac Introduction On 8 August 1137, Louis the Young, son of King Louis VI of France, was in Poitiers where, with his bride of two weeks, Eleanor of Aquitaine, they were recognized as duke and duchess of the province. Although he appears not to have known so on that day, the prince was already king. Louis VI had died on the first of August, and messengers found Louis VII either in Poitiers or on the road therefrom soon after his ducal coronation. In theory, he had been king since 1131 because of the Capetian practice of anointing sons during their own lifetime so as to ensure less dynastic disruption. That said, there was no misunderstanding that Louis VI remained fully in power until the end. Along with the announcement of Louis VI’s death, or so close on its heels as not to matter, came a different sort of news: the inhabitants of Orléans had decided to create their own local government, a commune. In doing so without permis- sion, they were effectively staging a rebellion. Thus, the newly married, new- to- power king faced his first crisis within days. He was all of sixteen years old.1 The paucity of narrative sources that marks much of Louis VII’s reign does not let us know what motivated the Orléanais at this exact moment. Likely, they saw an opportunity in his youth and inexperience, but they were to be disap- pointed. Louis VII moved against the town immediately and “chastised” it.2 The next spring, the situation seemed to repeat itself and worsen when the burghers of Poitiers formed themselves into a commune. Thanks to Abbot Suger’s brief account of Louis’ opening years as king, we know more details 1 According to the arguments of Marcel Pacaut, Louis VII et son royaume (Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1964), 33. An anonymous chronicle of the period does, however, insist Louis was four- teen. Even if erroneous, it highlights the new king’s perceived inexperience. “Ex Chronico Anonymi” in RHF XII, 120. 2 The word is Yves Sassier’s, and it seems the best word for the scenario, as the chronicles that describe Louis’ firm repression, including destruction and deaths, come from well after the events. Sassier, 86. See as well, “Suite des Grandes Chroniques de France,” in RHF XII, 196– 7. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2018 | DOI 10.1163/9789004368002_006 All Citizens High and Low: Louis VII and the Towns 63 this time: not only did they form a commune, but they seized the castle in the center of town, refortified the entire town with a new palisade, and perhaps most frighteningly, crafted some kind of confederation with surrounding settlements and strongpoints.3 Although the new king wanted real support (troops and funds, in other words) from his vassals, especially Count Theobald of Champagne, Louis had to settle with moving against Poitiers with what he could muster quickly from the royal domains: a mixture of two hundred knights, archers and crossbowmen. He summoned the local barons as well, and perhaps they responded. It is hard to see otherwise why Poitiers capitu- lated so readily at the mere appearance of the king and his troupe. The young king was nonetheless furious; Suger speaks of the vengeance he meant to take against this affront. The town’s fast, bloodless surrender did not mollify him, and he decided hostages were necessary to prevent a re- occurrence. Besides compelling the people to abjure the communal oaths they had sworn, Louis VII took one hundred children of both sexes from the town’s leaders and intended to disperse them across the kingdom. Suger arrived on the scene at this point, and assailed by the tear-filled entreaties of the citizens, had a private meeting with his royal protégé, where they discussed the hard balance of justice and pity. Two days later, as the wagons assembled to take away the children, the scene below their window was so pitiful that Louis again sought an answer to the question of what was the proper balance: would mercy be a greater injury in this case to the city and kingdom than the imposition of the declared sentence?4 While the other advisors present apparently hesitated at producing an answer, Suger promoted clemency. God would honor the king more, said the abbot, the less he tried to prove his sternness with cruelties. Persuaded by Suger, Louis left it to the abbot both to announce the royal clemency and simultaneously to threaten the townspeople with worse if they forgot 3 In his appeal to Count Theobald for aid, Louis is quoted by Suger as describing the revolt as “a great danger to the realm” (tanto regni periculo). Suger, “De Glorioso Rege Ludovico, Ludovici Filio,” in Ouevres, vol. i, ed. and trans. Françoise Gasparri (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1996), 166– 172. The timing of the expedition remains difficult to establish definitely. Sassier places it in September, apparently following the chronology set up by Achille Luchaire, Études sur les actes de Louis VII (Paris: Picard, 1885), 63. 4 While we cannot forget the propagandistic spin in Suger’s narratives, this passage sets up so well— and fits— the rest of Louis’ reign, including the majority of years after Suger’s death, that it must stand against Achille Luchaire’s negative summation (Sassier, 7), a portrait that occasionally still influences modern studies (Pacaut, Louis VII, 40, for example). Moreover, the very issues raised by Louis VII in this passage echo the very same balance that contempo- raries in England were already indicating that Stephen of Blois was not getting right, having been too merciful early on in his reign..

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