Henry the Young King, 1155-1183 by Matthew Strickland

Author:Matthew Strickland
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780300215519
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2017-07-07T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

The Brothers’ War, 1183

A king who fights for his rights has a better right to his heritage;

Because Charles conquered Spain, men have been talking about him ever since.

For with effort and generosity, a king both conquers merit and wins it …

The Young King has acquired merit from Burgos to Germany.

– Bertran de Born, ‘Ieu chan que.l reys m’en a preguat’1

The Castle of Clairvaux and the Breach with Richard

The spark that would ignite war had already been kindled in Aquitaine. It was most probably during the Young King’s visit to Limoges in June of 1182, but certainly before Christmas, that young Henry had secretly accepted pledges from the dissident barons of Poitou that they would follow him as their liege lord and not withdraw from his service.2 The question of his support was becoming ever more pressing, for by late 1182 the Taillefers and Aimar of Limoges had once more come out in open rebellion against Richard, summoning mercenaries to their aid.3 The Young King’s propensity to aid his brother’s enemies had been increased by his own quarrel with Richard over the latter’s construction of a castle, Clairvaux, on the border of Anjou and Poitou.4 Geoffrey Greygown, count of Anjou, had forcibly annexed the castle from Poitou, though he had acknowledged Count William III’s ultimate title by performing homage for it. Over time, however, this homage had lapsed, and Clairvaux had been assimilated into Anjou.5 Richard may well have been reasserting an ancient claim, but in 1182 it was Henry II, not the Young King, who had actual control of Anjou, and Richard can scarcely have felt threatened by his father after the latter’s evident support for him against the Aquitanian rebels. Richard may have been strengthening his position in relation to the viscount of Châtellerault, one of his leading Poitevin vassals whose own fortress at Châtellerault controlled a key crossing of the river Vienne.6 But his motives may have been as much economic as strategic. A mid-thirteenth-century inquest reveals that in 1184 Richard had established a castle, but also a new town dependent on it, at Saint-Rémy-de-la-Haye on the river Creuse, which formed the border between Poitou and the Touraine. Burgesses were attracted to the ‘free town’ by the rent or sale of plots to be held by burgage tenure, and the count’s officials collected tolls and dues.7 Richard’s founding of the castle at Clairvaux in 1182 appears closely analogous. In his sirventes which speaks of Clairvaux, Bertran de Born gives the Young King the mocking senhal or coded name ‘Sir Carter’ (en Charretier), and the poem’s thirteenth-century razo, or introduction, explained this by noting that Henry II had given young Henry an income of tolls from carts, but that these had been taken away by Richard.8 Little reliance can be placed on these quasi-historical razos, but the presence of a new bourg at Clairvaux may well have led to conflict over local rights, not least with comital officials in Anjou. The Young King’s unusually complete dependence on assigned revenues doubtless made him particularly sensitive to such issues.

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