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<p>[QUOTE="+VGO.DVCKS, post: 8184139, member: 110504"][ATTACH=full]1431307[/ATTACH]</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1431308[/ATTACH]</p><p>France, County of La Marche. Hugues IX and Hugues X de Lusignan (1199-1219, 1219-1249). Denier of La Marche.</p><p>Obv. +VGO COMES.</p><p>Rev. Crosslet; crescents and annulets above and below. +MARCHIE (annulet).</p><p>Duplessy 960.</p><p>I dearly love this thread, and need to belatedly thank [USER=44183]@stevex6[/USER] for starting it.</p><p>By way of conveying my gratitude, here’s one, longer than anyone else has lacked the common sense not to post.</p><p>Hugh /Hugues X is one of my favorite French rogue barons of the earlier 13th century. Along with Pierre ‘Mauclerc’ de Dreux, sometime count /duke of Brittany (by marriage), and Renaud de Dammartin, about whom I and other people have posted, he’s a poster child for the baronial response to the dramatic and, at least with eight centuries of hindsight, inexorable expansion of royal power, both territorially and administratively, which began to seriously accelerate under Philippe II. …It would take Edward III, and the earlier phases of the Hundred Years’ War, to reverse the trend in the following century (...and, Oh, Right, the Black Death). Back to the earlier 13th, the number of coordinated baronial revolts in France evoke those in England under King John, as they complemented them in real time. Part of the contrast, both in the tactics and their longer-term effects, involves the fact that, from the Conquest, the Anglo-Norman aristocracy were allotted estates scattered across England …and had to think on a national scale. By this time, the French baronage had a quarter millennium of concentrated territorial power, with attendant levels of local autonomy. Ironically or not, their corresponding response was always regional –and Philippe II, along with Philippe III and Louis IX, were always, ultimately able to ‘divide and conquer.’</p><p><br /></p><p>For Hugues X, I’m cutting and pasting part of a paper which (to quote myself …nope, too fast to stop me) is likely to be unfinished when I’m not.</p><p><br /></p><p> Based in northern Aquitaine, near the center of the Angevin and Capetian frontier, the Lusignans were notorious for serial plots and counterplots against both royal dynasties. These saw their late apogee in the comital reign of Hugues X (1219-1249). Poitou’s relative remoteness from the Capetian royal demesne allowed the region –under Angevin rule since the mid-12th century– to evade Philippe II’s much more definitive conquest (1204) of the Angevin possessions to its north (Baldwin, Philip Augustus 238-9). Until 1242, it remained, in Petit-Dutaillis’s memorable phrase, a “cockpit of intermittent hostilities and feudal anarchy” (222). Painter no less succintly describes Hugues’s motives for perpetuating this state of affairs: “Hugh [...]’s fundamental objects were to make himself absolute master of Poitou and to escape as much as possible from the control of his suzerain. Hence he preferred to give his allegiance to the weakest government he could find” (biography of Pierre ‘Mauclerc,’ 43).</p><p><br /></p><p>The tenor of this assessment was shared by contemporaries and near contemporaries on both sides of the Channel. Matthew Paris’s brief notice of Hugh X’s death on St. Louis’s first crusade is framed in terms of expiation for “all his […] crimes” (see below); Guillaume de Saint-Pathus’s Life of Saint Louis characterizes him as “full of vanity and presumption” (quoted in Le Goff, Saint Louis 278). On his accession to the county of La Marche, Hugues allied with the minority government of Henry III. By the early summer of 1224, he had been bought off by Louis VIII of France, although Hallam notes that he was already “moving back towards support of the English.” [Footnotes omitted, as elsewhere.] In 1226, on the accession of Louis IX, he joined an ill-fated baronial coalition against the Capetian regent, Blanche of Castile, formally renewing his alliance with Henry III in the process. Ten years later, he allied with Thibaut IV of Champagne during the latter’s machinations against Louis IX. In 1241, he was again in revolt against the Capetians, “deserting” a fresh alliance with Henry III only after the decisive defeat of Henry’s invasionary force in the following year.</p><p><br /></p><p> Predictably, this latest of Hugues’s intrigues managed to alienate both royal families. In the immediate aftermath of his desertion, Henry III sent a letter to Friedrich II of Germany, drawing another explicitly Biblical parallel:</p><p><br /></p><p>"Hugh, Count of La Marche, and [his colleague] Reginald of Pons betrayed us. Reginald of Pons bade us farewell and, giving us a Judas kiss, went to do the treachery he had planned. [...W]e could not remain longer among that false and lying people of Poitou without danger of our body...."</p><p><br /></p><p>Matthew Paris says of Hugues, who briefly predeceased his son, Hugues XI, on the same, initial crusade of Louis IX (obit. 1249 and 1250, respectively), “[...] it is to be charitably believed that he prudently expiated this crime and all his other sins on this pilgrimage.” ((120-) 121.) Hugues pere had taken the cross in the immediate aftermath of his pardon by Louis, accompanied by the surrender of several castles to the Crown, and a large annual indemnity.</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1431314[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>A French commentary on the Epistles, c. second quarter of the 13th century: From the British Library website: <a href="http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=16782" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=16782" rel="nofollow">http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=16782</a></p><p><br /></p><p>The historiated initial provides a resonant graphic foil both to Matthew Paris’s characteristically acerbic prose, and Henry III’s histrionics. A New Testament theme is reworked using an unmistakably contemporaneous coat of arms, here with equally unmistakable editorial overtones. The result is a remarkably cogent example of the capacity of medieval visual language not only to expound, but to expand on the available textual evidence. It dramatically combines a well known coat of arms with a Biblical character, albeit an anonymous one. In the historiated initial, St. Paul’s jailer has the arms of the Lusignan counts of La Marche. This from a period when heraldry was already, very literally a visual language –like medieval symbolism in other media; explicitly denotive, and correspondingly specific in its content.</p><p>(End of (slightly edited) quote.)</p><p><br /></p><p>…Right, so finally we’re at the place where you get the tune. This landed on me last night. It was So right. …The video is one of my favorites of all time; the dance moves always crack me up. And the trombonist --Kicking Bottom, or What? ...And (edit: ) Yike, there are Two Threads about variously "old" and "favorite" tunes! I so seriously got to this party too late....</p><p>[MEDIA=youtube]cntvEDbagAw[/MEDIA][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="+VGO.DVCKS, post: 8184139, member: 110504"][ATTACH=full]1431307[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]1431308[/ATTACH] France, County of La Marche. Hugues IX and Hugues X de Lusignan (1199-1219, 1219-1249). Denier of La Marche. Obv. +VGO COMES. Rev. Crosslet; crescents and annulets above and below. +MARCHIE (annulet). Duplessy 960. I dearly love this thread, and need to belatedly thank [USER=44183]@stevex6[/USER] for starting it. By way of conveying my gratitude, here’s one, longer than anyone else has lacked the common sense not to post. Hugh /Hugues X is one of my favorite French rogue barons of the earlier 13th century. Along with Pierre ‘Mauclerc’ de Dreux, sometime count /duke of Brittany (by marriage), and Renaud de Dammartin, about whom I and other people have posted, he’s a poster child for the baronial response to the dramatic and, at least with eight centuries of hindsight, inexorable expansion of royal power, both territorially and administratively, which began to seriously accelerate under Philippe II. …It would take Edward III, and the earlier phases of the Hundred Years’ War, to reverse the trend in the following century (...and, Oh, Right, the Black Death). Back to the earlier 13th, the number of coordinated baronial revolts in France evoke those in England under King John, as they complemented them in real time. Part of the contrast, both in the tactics and their longer-term effects, involves the fact that, from the Conquest, the Anglo-Norman aristocracy were allotted estates scattered across England …and had to think on a national scale. By this time, the French baronage had a quarter millennium of concentrated territorial power, with attendant levels of local autonomy. Ironically or not, their corresponding response was always regional –and Philippe II, along with Philippe III and Louis IX, were always, ultimately able to ‘divide and conquer.’ For Hugues X, I’m cutting and pasting part of a paper which (to quote myself …nope, too fast to stop me) is likely to be unfinished when I’m not. Based in northern Aquitaine, near the center of the Angevin and Capetian frontier, the Lusignans were notorious for serial plots and counterplots against both royal dynasties. These saw their late apogee in the comital reign of Hugues X (1219-1249). Poitou’s relative remoteness from the Capetian royal demesne allowed the region –under Angevin rule since the mid-12th century– to evade Philippe II’s much more definitive conquest (1204) of the Angevin possessions to its north (Baldwin, Philip Augustus 238-9). Until 1242, it remained, in Petit-Dutaillis’s memorable phrase, a “cockpit of intermittent hostilities and feudal anarchy” (222). Painter no less succintly describes Hugues’s motives for perpetuating this state of affairs: “Hugh [...]’s fundamental objects were to make himself absolute master of Poitou and to escape as much as possible from the control of his suzerain. Hence he preferred to give his allegiance to the weakest government he could find” (biography of Pierre ‘Mauclerc,’ 43). The tenor of this assessment was shared by contemporaries and near contemporaries on both sides of the Channel. Matthew Paris’s brief notice of Hugh X’s death on St. Louis’s first crusade is framed in terms of expiation for “all his […] crimes” (see below); Guillaume de Saint-Pathus’s Life of Saint Louis characterizes him as “full of vanity and presumption” (quoted in Le Goff, Saint Louis 278). On his accession to the county of La Marche, Hugues allied with the minority government of Henry III. By the early summer of 1224, he had been bought off by Louis VIII of France, although Hallam notes that he was already “moving back towards support of the English.” [Footnotes omitted, as elsewhere.] In 1226, on the accession of Louis IX, he joined an ill-fated baronial coalition against the Capetian regent, Blanche of Castile, formally renewing his alliance with Henry III in the process. Ten years later, he allied with Thibaut IV of Champagne during the latter’s machinations against Louis IX. In 1241, he was again in revolt against the Capetians, “deserting” a fresh alliance with Henry III only after the decisive defeat of Henry’s invasionary force in the following year. Predictably, this latest of Hugues’s intrigues managed to alienate both royal families. In the immediate aftermath of his desertion, Henry III sent a letter to Friedrich II of Germany, drawing another explicitly Biblical parallel: "Hugh, Count of La Marche, and [his colleague] Reginald of Pons betrayed us. Reginald of Pons bade us farewell and, giving us a Judas kiss, went to do the treachery he had planned. [...W]e could not remain longer among that false and lying people of Poitou without danger of our body...." Matthew Paris says of Hugues, who briefly predeceased his son, Hugues XI, on the same, initial crusade of Louis IX (obit. 1249 and 1250, respectively), “[...] it is to be charitably believed that he prudently expiated this crime and all his other sins on this pilgrimage.” ((120-) 121.) Hugues pere had taken the cross in the immediate aftermath of his pardon by Louis, accompanied by the surrender of several castles to the Crown, and a large annual indemnity. [ATTACH=full]1431314[/ATTACH] A French commentary on the Epistles, c. second quarter of the 13th century: From the British Library website: [URL]http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=16782[/URL] The historiated initial provides a resonant graphic foil both to Matthew Paris’s characteristically acerbic prose, and Henry III’s histrionics. A New Testament theme is reworked using an unmistakably contemporaneous coat of arms, here with equally unmistakable editorial overtones. The result is a remarkably cogent example of the capacity of medieval visual language not only to expound, but to expand on the available textual evidence. It dramatically combines a well known coat of arms with a Biblical character, albeit an anonymous one. In the historiated initial, St. Paul’s jailer has the arms of the Lusignan counts of La Marche. This from a period when heraldry was already, very literally a visual language –like medieval symbolism in other media; explicitly denotive, and correspondingly specific in its content. (End of (slightly edited) quote.) …Right, so finally we’re at the place where you get the tune. This landed on me last night. It was So right. …The video is one of my favorites of all time; the dance moves always crack me up. And the trombonist --Kicking Bottom, or What? ...And (edit: ) Yike, there are Two Threads about variously "old" and "favorite" tunes! I so seriously got to this party too late.... [MEDIA=youtube]cntvEDbagAw[/MEDIA][/QUOTE]
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