England under the Angevin Kings, Volume INorgate, Kate
History
England under the Angevin Kings, Volume I
Norgate, Kate
Anjou, House of; England -- Civilization -- 1066-1485; Great Britain -- History -- Angevin period, 1154-1216
The latter part of the account of Ingelger in the _Gesta_ (Marchegay,
_Comtes_, pp. 47–62) is copied bodily from the _Tractatus de reversione
B. Martini a Burgundiâ_, which professes to have been written by S. Odo
of Cluny at the request of his foster-brother, Count Fulk the Good.
The wild anachronisms of this treatise have been thoroughly exposed by
its latest editor, M. A. Salmon (_Supplément au Recueil des Chroniques
de Touraine_, pp. xi–xxviii), and M. Mabille (“Les Invasions normandes
dans la Loire et les pérégrinations du corps de S. Martin,” in _Bibl.
de l’Ecole des Chartes_, ser. vi. vol. v. pp. 149–194). It is certain,
from the statement of S. Odo’s own biographer John, that the saint was
born in 879 and entered religion in 898; at which time it is evident
that Fulk the Good, the Red Count’s youngest son, must have been quite
a child, if even he was in existence at all. The letters in which he
and the abbot address each other as foster-brothers are therefore
forgeries; and the treatise which these letters introduce is no better.
The only part of it which directly concerns our present subject is
the end, recounting how the body of the Apostle of the Gauls, after a
thirty years’ exile at Auxerre, whither it had been carried to keep it
safe from the sacrilegious hands of Hrolf and his northmen when they
were ravaging Touraine, was brought back in triumph to its home at
Tours on December 13, 887, by Ingelger, count of Gâtinais and Anjou,
and grandson of Hugh, duke of Burgundy. Now there is no doubt at all
that the relics of S. Martin were carried into Burgundy and afterwards
brought back again, and that the feast of the Reversion of S. Martin
on December 13 was regularly celebrated at Tours in commemoration of
the event; but the whole history of the adventures of the relics as
given in this treatise is manifestly wrong in its details; _e.g._ the
statements about Hrolf are ludicrous--the “reversion” is said to have
taken place after his conversion. M. Salmon has gone carefully through
the whole story: M. Mabille has sifted it still more thoroughly. These
two writers have shewn that the body of S. Martin really went through
a great many more “peregrinations” than those recounted in the Cluny
treatise, that the real date of the reversion is 885, and in short that
the treatise is wrong in every one of its dates and every one of the
names of the bishops whom it mentions as concerned in the reversion,
save those of Archbishop Adaland of Tours and his brother Raino, who,
however, was bishop of Angers, not of Orléans as the treatise says. The
passages in the Tours chronicle where Ingelger is described as count of
Anjou are all derived from this source, and therefore prove nothing,
except the writer’s ignorance about counts and bishops alike.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account