Note Ee. pp. , 302. The Relations of Æthelred with Normandy

The English Chronicles, and also Florence, are silent as to any intercourse, whether friendly or hostile, between England and Normandy earlier than the marriage of Æthelred and Emma. The one passage which has been sometimes thought to refer to one of the events recorded in the text cannot possibly have that meaning. The entry in the Chronicles in the year 1000, “And se unfrið flota wæs ðæs sumeres gewend to Ricardes rice,” can refer only to the Danish fleet. “Unfrið flota” must be taken in the same sense as “unfrið here” in the year 1009. And so it is taken by Florence; “Danorum classis præfata hoc anno Nortmanniam petit.” We are thus left wholly to the testimony of inferior authorities, and we must get such an amount of truth out of them as we can.

I have, in my text, after some hesitation, described two disputes between Æthelred and the Norman Dukes. The first quarrel was with Richard the Fearless in 991, which was appeased by the intervention of Pope John the Fifteenth; the second was with Richard the Good in 1000, which led to open hostilities which are described as an English invasion of the Côtentin. The stories rest respectively on the authority of William of Malmesbury (ii. 165, 6), and of William of Jumièges (v. 4). It is open to any one to reject both stories. It is still more open to any one to reject the second story, the exaggerated character of which is manifest, and the chronology of which must be a year or two wrong. But I do not think that it is safe to take them, with Sir Francis Palgrave (England and Normandy, iii. 103), and Dr. Lappenberg (p. of the original, ii. 154 Thorpe), as different versions of one event, still less to fix, with Sir Francis, that event to the later date of the two.

William of Malmesbury tells us very little in his own name. He says only that Richard the Fearless had provoked Æthelred in various ways (“vir eximius, qui etiam Edelredum sæpe injuriis pulsaverit”), and that Pope John, wishing to hinder war among Christians (“non passa sedes apostolica duos Christianos digladiari”), sent Leo Bishop of Trier into England to make peace. A document then follows, described as the “legationis epistola” of this prelate, which contains an account of his mission, and gives the terms of the peace between Æthelred and Richard, and the names of the plenipotentiaries on both sides. The document is very strange in point of form, as it begins in the name of the Pope, while the latter part clearly gives the actual words of the treaty. Sir Francis Palgrave (iii. 106) objects to the genuineness of the letter that its style is unusual, if not unparalleled, which it certainly is. It runs thus; “Johannes quintus decimus, sanctæ Romanæ ecclesiæ Papa, omnibus fidelibus.” Sir Francis does not mention another objection, namely, that neither in 991 nor in 1001 was the Archbishop of Trier named Leo. The reigning Archbishop in 991 was Eckebert; before 1000 he had been succeeded by Ludolf (Gesta Treverorum, ap. Pertz, viii. 169–171). But Sir Francis (iii. 107) adds, “While we reject the convention in the shape now presented, we accept its import.—The quarrel and the reconciliation are unquestionable verities.” But the quarrel and reconciliation recorded by William of Malmesbury are a quarrel and reconciliation between Æthelred and Richard the Fearless in a definite year 991. They cannot be turned into a quarrel and reconciliation between Æthelred and Richard the Good nine years later. The apparently wrong name of the papal legate is a difficulty either way, but it is not a very formidable one. Lappenberg (p. of the original German) calls Leo “Vicebischof von Trier,” which Mr. Thorpe (ii. 154) translates simply “Bishop.” Lappenberg gives no reference for his description of Leo; but a fact in German history may be safely accepted on his authority, and the local history of Trier which I have just referred to contains a statement which curiously fits in with our story. Archbishop Eckebert (977–993), son of Theodoric, Count of Holland, was the son of an English mother, and he kept up a close connexion with England. It is therefore quite natural that either he or an officer of his church should enter with zeal into a scheme for the advantage of a country which Eckebert seems almost to have looked on as his own. The other names are accurately given. John the Fifteenth was Pope, and Æthelsige was Bishop of Sherborne, in 991. Both were dead in 1000. I think it follows that the account in William of Malmesbury cannot possibly refer to a transaction with Richard the Good in 1000. The story is definitely fixed to the year 991.

Is then William of Malmesbury’s account ground enough for accepting a quarrel between Æthelred and Richard the Fearless, and a reconciliation brought about by Pope John Fifteenth? On the whole, I think it is. It is not the kind of transaction which any one would invent, if nothing of the sort happened at all, and it is hard to see to what other transaction the account can refer. The story also, as it seems to me, fits in well with the circumstances of the times. The “legationis epistola” can hardly be genuine in its actual shape as a letter of the Pope, but it seems to be made out of two genuine documents, a letter of Pope John and the text of the treaty. The unusual style might be simply the bungling attempt of a compiler to show which of all the Popes named John was the one here meant. The treaty itself bears every sign of genuineness, and the names of the plenipotentiaries are distinctly in its favour. One of the Norman signatures is that of “Rogerus episcopus,” and there was a Roger Bishop of Lisieux from 990 to 1024. The lesser Norman plenipotentiaries I cannot identify, but on the English side, as the Bishop is right, the Thegns also are right. A mere forger would not have inserted such names as those of Leofstan and Æthelnoth. He would either have put in names quite at a venture, or else have picked out the names of some famous Ealdormen of the time. There could be no temptation for a forger to pitch on Leofstan and Æthelnoth, real contemporary men, but men of no special celebrity.

The reader has still to determine whether, accepting this account of Æthelred’s quarrel with the elder Richard, he will go on to admit a second quarrel with the younger Richard. The only question is whether the story in William of Jumièges is pure invention, or whether its manifestly exaggerated details contain some such kernel of truth as I have supposed in the text. It certainly seems to me that to set the whole affair down as a mere lie is attributing too much even to the Norman power of lying, which I certainly have no wish to underrate. The story, in its general outline, seems to fit in well with the position of things at the time, and even with the character of Æthelred. But if we accept it as thus far true, we must suppose that William of Jumièges transposed the invasion of the Côtentin and the marriage of Emma. He places the latter event first. Now the marriage would follow very naturally on the conclusion of peace, while the invasion would not be at all likely to follow the marriage. Sir Francis Palgrave silently transposes the two events in the same way that I have done. He also connects the invasion, as I have done, with the reception of Danish vessels in the Norman havens. If this was, as I suppose, a breach of the treaty of 991, the wrath of Æthelred becomes still more intelligible. In this view of the matter, looking at the entry in the Chronicles under the year 1000, we can hardly fail to fix the event in that year.

Lappenberg, whose note (p. ) should be read in the original text, takes the opposite view to Sir Francis Palgrave. He accepts the account of the transaction in 991, but carries back the invasion of the Côtentin to that year. This is at least more probable than Sir Francis’ version, and perhaps some readers may be inclined to accept it rather than my notion of two distinct disputes. But the narrative of William of Jumièges connects the invasion in a marked way with the marriage of Emma, though he has clearly confounded the order of events.

Roger of Wendover (i. 427) boldly carries back the marriage of Emma to some date earlier than 990, and makes the quarrel between Æthelred and her father arise out of his ill-treatment of her. He was misled by William of Malmesbury’s characteristic contempt for chronological order.