‘His Special Friend’ ? The Settlement of Disputes and Political Power in the Kingdom of the French (Tenth to Mid-Twelfth Century)

Abstract

‘Failing help from God and Saint Martin, the canons found it necessary to renew their complaint before the lord Hugh, their abbot and count’.‘For almost six years’, the canons of Saint-Martin de Tours had been trying to regain possession of land in the neighbouring diocese of Poitiers. They complained that through ‘the cupidity of Frankish men’ they had been deprived of two estates; and, because ‘they could never get justice for their claim’, they were asking their lay-abbot, Hugh, for his advice. Hugh counselled them ‘to go again and put their claim to the lord Count Ebles, his special friend’ and to Ebles' own faithful men (iterum ad domnum Ebolum comitem, suum specialem amicum, et praescriptos suos fideles). Where God and his saint had not come to the canons' aid, cooperation between the two most powerful laymen of these regions broke this judicial deadlock: after intervention by Counts Hugh and Ebles, the viscounts of Thouars recognised that they had unjustly deprived Saint Martin of his property, and the two estates could be returned to the community of Saint-Martin once diey had renounced their possession of thevillaeof Curçay and Antogné.