Ebles II of Roucy

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Ebles II
Hilduin IV
MotherAdelaide de Roucy

Ebles II (died May 1103), also called Eble or Ebale,

Hilduin IV of Montdidier and Alice (Alix), daughter of Ebles I of Roucy. He is famous for his participation in the Reconquista (the war against Muslim Spain), as well as for being one of the unruly barons of the Île-de-France subjugated by King Louis VI while he was still a prince. His life and character are summed up by Suger in his history of the reign of Louis VI: "Ebles was a man of great military prowess—indeed he became so bold that one day he set out for Spain with an army of a size fit only for a king—his feats of arms only made him more outrageous and rapacious in pillage, rape and all over evils."[1]

Spanish crusade of 1073

On 30 April 1073

plenary indulgence for engaging in a holy war have been customarily dated to the campaign against Barbastro (1063–64) but may belong to that of Ebles.[6]

Ebles was probably a relative of

Sancho II, by assuring them that their claims on the parias of Zaragoza (which, along with allied Navarre, felt threatened by the crusade) were not in jeopardy. Upon becoming Pope, however, Gregory removed Gerald from this position and instated Hugh Candidus, a veteran of the crusade of Barbastro and a friend of the king of Aragon.[d] In February 1074 Gregory was busy pushing Sancho, a recognised Papal vassal since 1068, to act against the Muslims.[7] Sancho at some point took as his second wife Felicia (Félicie), perhaps the sister of Ebles.[e]

Feudal conflict in France

According to Suger, the "tyrannical, valiant and turbulent baron Ebles of Roucy and his son Guischard"

Archdiocese of Reims ("the noble church of Reims and the churches dependant on it"), and over one hundred formal complaints against Ebles were made to the Crown during the time of Philip I (1060–1108).[11] His son, the future Louis VI, received two or three complaints and gathered an army of seven hundred knights "from the most noble and valiant of French lords" and entered the district of Reims, where he fought Ebles "vigorously" for the next two months, resting his army only on Saturdays and Sundays.[g] Louis made war on all the barons of the region because they were allied by family ties to Ebles, who he describes as "the great men of Lotharingia".[11] The prince, on the advice of his counsellors, only left the region after Ebles had sworn oaths to respect the peace of the churches and given hostages. Negotiations over the possession of the castle of Neufchâtel were left off for a later date.[11]

When

jongleur who entered his camp). Impress by Louis's bravery, the rebels made their peace.[12]

Pope Gregory wrote to Ebles after the deposition of Archbishop

Manasses I of Reims in 1081 asking him to resist the latter's claims.[13]

Around 1082 Ebles donated his section of the road at Mortcerf to the abbey of Saint-Martin at Pontoise.[14]

Anna Komnene, in the Alexiad, records the marriage of the youngest daughter of Robert Guiscard to a certain Eubulus, a "very illustrious count".[15] This daughter was Sybilla, the wife of Ebles of Roucy.[16]

Notes

  1. ^ This name has been found in Latin as Ebalus, Ebolus, Ebulus or Evulus.
  2. ^ The Latin of Gregory's missive is “omnibus principus in terram Hyspaniae” and “credimus regnum Hyspanie ab antiquo proprii iuris sancti Petri fuisse”. Two letters of Gregory dated the same day survive, one to the Papal legates then in southern France and another to the barons of France wishing to participate in the venture. They can be found in Ephraim Emerton, The Correspondence of Pope Gregory VII: Selected Letters from the Registrum (Columbia, 1990), 4–6.
  3. Ebles Manzer
    . Ebles II and Sancho are called cousins in Reilly (1988), 80.
  4. ^ He did allow Gerald to appoint advisors to his replacement, but the change appears to have been pro-Aragonese and hence anti-Castilian, cf. Bishko (1969), 77–78.
  5. Ermengol III of Urgell
    and his first or second wife Clemencia, cf. Bishko (1969), 55 n344.
  6. ^ tyrannide fortissimo et tumultuosi baronis Ebali Ruciacensis et filii eius Guischardi
  7. ^ In Suger's words: "punishing the evils inflicted in the past on the churches, and ravaging, burning and pillaging the lands of the tyrant and his associates. It was well done; for the pillagers were pillaged, and the torturers exposed to equal or worse tortures than they had inflicted on others. Such was the ardour of the prince and his army that throughout the whole time they were there they scarcely rested, except on Saturdays and Sundays; they ceaselessly fought with lances or swords, to avenge by harrying the injuries the count had done."
  8. ^ Suger borrows the phrase "spears menaced spears" from Lucan's Pharsalia, I, 7.

References

  1. Internet Medieval Sourcebook
    (October 1999). In this translation of the Vita Ludovici the fifth chapter is titled "Concerning Ebles, Count of Roucy".
  2. ^ Bernard F. Reilly, The Contest of Christian and Muslim Spain, 1031–1157, (Blackwell, 1995), 69.
  3. ^ Bernard F. Reilly, The Kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VI, 1065–1109 (Princeton, 1988), 80–81; Villegas-Aristizábal 'Pope Gregory VII and Count Eblous II of Roucy’s Proto-Crusade in Iberia', pp. 118-120.
  4. ^ Carl Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade (Princeton, 1977), 155–56: "in letters ... of Alexander and in our legation ... by the pact he made with us concerning the land of Spain in the writing which we gave him" (in litteris ... Alexandri et nostra quoque legatione ... pactione quam nobiscum de terra Hypsaniae pepigit in scripto, quod sibi dedimus).
  5. ^ Erdmann (1977), 156 n84: ad honorem sancti Petri; Villegas-Aristizábal 'Pope Gregory VII and Count Eblous II of Roucy’s Proto-Crusade in Iberia', pp. 120-122.
  6. ^ Charles J. Bishko, "Fernando I and the Origins of the Leonese-Castilian Alliance With Cluny", Cuadernos de Historia de España 48 (1969), 56.
  7. ^ a b c Reilly (1988), 81.
  8. ^ Erdmann (1977), 224.
  9. ^ Pierre David, "Gregoire VII, Cluny et Alphonse VI", Études historiques sur la Galice et le Portugal du VIe au XIIe siècle (Paris: 1947), 341–39.
  10. ^ Bishko (1969), 54.
  11. ^ a b c Vita Ludovici, ch. V.
  12. ^ a b Vita Ludovici, ch. VII.
  13. ^ Walter Ullman, The Growth of Papal Government in the Middle Ages: A Study in the Ideological Relation of Clerical to Lay Power (Methuen, 1962), 281.
  14. ^ J. Depoin, ed., Cartulaire de l'abbaye de Saint-Martin de Pontoise (1895), Acte XIV.
  15. ^ Elizabeth A. Dawes, ed., The Alexiad (Routledge, 1928), 33.
  16. ^ *Guenée, Bernard (1978). "Les généalogies entre l'histoire et la politique: la fierté d'être Capétien, en France, au Moyen Age". Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales (in French). 33e Année, No. 3 (May - Jun.): 471.

Further reading