Rouen (France) -- Description and travel; Rouen (France) -- History
Rouen had not remained entirely submissive to the Lion of Justice. In
1109 the King of France encouraged yet another rising of the citizens
in Rouen and elsewhere against feudal power. And after the wreck of
the White Ship, Fulk of Anjou took the opportunity to push the claims
of Duke Robert's son both in England and Normandy, but the rebels were
badly beaten at Bourgtheroulde (between Seine and Rille), and the Lion
of Justice held a court in Rouen to judge them. Some were imprisoned
in his Tower by the Seine, and some in Gloucester, while a satiric
poet, named Luke of Barre, paid the penalty of being a pioneer in
scoffing politics by having his eyes put out. At Henry's death in
1135, Matilda's infant heir was still very young at Le Mans, and the
usual anarchy followed both in England and in Normandy that was
inevitable when the direct male line of Norman Dukes died out. Of the
two countries Normandy had perhaps the fate that was hardest to bear,
for it was better to be ruled by any one than a Count of that Maine,
with whom, as with an equal, so many centuries of battles had been
fought. But the strong stock of Anjou and Maine soon took advantage of
the weakness of the Northern Duchy, and in 1144 Geoffrey Plantagenet
entered Rouen in triumph.
"Ceu fulmen ab alto,"
sings the poet,
"Neustria concutitur fulgure tacta novo."
To an inheritance so rich already, the boy Henry Plantagenet added all
the dominions of Eleanor of Poitou by marriage, and after the anarchy
of Stephen's reign in England had passed over, the Angevin Empire
began from the Pyrenees to the Firth of Forth. At ten years old the
second Henry had been recognised by Rouen as her duke, and it can be
easily understood that the citizens used every advantage it was
possible to win from the years of his minority, and from the days of
uncertain authority before it. Already under Henri Beauclerc the
municipality of Rouen had obtained ampler recognition than before. Its
population increased accordingly, and was augmented by the extension
of freedom to a considerable number of serfs. The bounds of the city
itself were enlarged, and from the fact that a fire is recorded (in
November 1131) to have destroyed the Hotel de Ville, near the Porte
Massacre, in the Rue de la Grosse Horloge, we may gather that the
municipality, whose rights in property were recognised, had been able
to secure a common meeting-place for the discussion of its civic
business. By 1150 these meetings had resulted in a league, definitely
made by the burgesses, to defend their rights against all feudal
encroachments, a league which very nearly deserves that name of
"Commune" at last, which was apparently first given in Normandy to Eu
and to St. Quentin. Geoffrey Plantagenet, during his government of the
Duchy for his son, had recognised the strength of this civic movement,
by confirming the privileges of the citizens, and favouring the growth
of this industrial corporation. In May of that same year the first law
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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