chapter 2 Chivalric Carnage? Fighting, Capturing and Killing at the Battles of Dol and Fornham in 1173
John D. Hosler
The lines between idealized chivalric behavior and the practicalities of actual combat in the Middle Ages were rather blurred. While scholars have some- times suggested that courtliness and social responsibility were limiting fac- tors on knightly violence, Richard W. Kaeuper has countered that chivalry “imposed no serious check on the looting, widespread destruction, and loss of non-combatant lives that seem to have been the constant companions of warfare.”1 One could push his point even further and argue that chivalric conduct itself actually had potential to generate greater carnage. While some knights may indeed have striven to fight according to established norms of chivalric engagement, it does not automatically follow that they convinced, forced, or even expected their social lessers to act similarly. Moreover, if the accepted manner of combat was visibly and violently effective, others might observe its intensity and ferociousness and imitate themselves. This essay will argue that knightly combat had the potential to directly and indirectly increase the level of carnage both during and after open battle. It will do so by comparing and contrasting two lesser-known but crucial engage- ments during the reign of Henry II of England, the battles of Dol (Brittany, 20 August 1173) and Fornham (England, 17 October 1173). While both battles were triumphs for the English king and featured the capture and imprison- ment of defeated foes, the knightly deeds displayed at Fornham resulted in a greater degree of killing. Because neither battle has received much treatment in print, their respective contexts and narratives will first be outlined. Thereaf- ter, I will examine the conduct of the knights and show that their social status, and behavior corresponding therewith, affected the degree of their violent ac- tions. Despite the small sample size, it should be evident that close readings of
1 Richard W. Kaeuper, Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe (Reprint, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2006), 185. The research presented in this essay was supported in part by funds from the Morgan State University Office of Faculty Professional Development under a Title III Grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004341098_004
Context
The battles of Dol and Fornham were two early engagements in the story of the great revolt against Henry II. Its seeds were sown on All Saints’ Day (1 Novem- ber) 1172, when Henry’s son Henry “the Younger” traveled to Paris to meet his father-in-law Louis VII of France. The French king had long sought to diminish the continental reach of his rival, which had steadily grown throughout the 1150s and 1160s to encompass Maine, Brittany, Poitou, and the Vexin. In Henry the Younger, Louis found a fiery man anxious to make a mark in the world. Slyly, Louis suggested that he ought to receive at least England or Normandy as his own kingdom, and in February 1173 Henry traveled to Limoges and asked his father for just that.3 Henry II refused, so young Henry rebelled and was later joined by his younger brothers Geoffrey and Richard.4 To the royal dissi- dents were added a host of allies, some of whom viewed Henry II as a tyrant.5 On 8 April, they all joined with Louis at St Denis and swore to support Henry the Younger who, for his part, gifted castles, land, and future revenues to such figures as counts Theobald V of Blois, Philip of Flanders, and Matthew of Bou- logne, as well as King William the Lion of Scotland.6
2 David Crouch has pointed out that the word “chivalry” was not in regular use in the twelfth century; I use it here for thematic convenience only; see Tournament (Reprint, London: Hambledon and Continuum, 2006), 149. 3 Chronica magistri Rogeri de Houedene, ed. W. Stubbs, Rolls Series 51, 4 vols. (London, 1868–1871), 2.40–1. Young Henry’s complaint stemmed from his youngest brother John’s re- ception of the castles of Chinon, Loudun, and Mirebeau, all of which lay within Anjou and Maine, provinces for which Henry had paid homage to his father in 1169. 4 Their mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, attempted to join her sons as well but was caught while traveling incognito to France; see Ralph V. Turner, “Eleanor of Aquitaine and her Children: an Inquiry into Medieval Family Attachment,” Journal of Medieval History 14 (1988): 329–30; and Desmond Seward, Eleanor of Aquitaine: the Mother Queen (New York: David & Charles, 1979), 129. 5 Marcel Pacaut, Louis VII et son royaume (Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1964), 208–9. 6 From Roger of Howden’s first chronicle, which used to be attributed to Benedict of Peterbor- ough; see Gesta regis Henrici Secundi Benedicti abbatis, ed. W. Stubbs, Rolls Series 49, 2 vols. (London, 1867), 1.43–5.