if they wished the responsibility of them to be shared by a larger body, the means were easy. There was a court of peers ready at hand, before whom they might arraign the traitors.
Claims of Robert, grandson of Geroy.
The castle granted to him.
But if there were those within Saint Cenery who
were marked for punishment, there was one without its
walls who claimed restitution. A son of Geroy's son
Robert, bearing his father's name, had, like others of
his family, served with credit in the wars of Apulia
and Sicily. He was now in the Duke's army, seemingly
among the warriors of Maine, ready to play his part in
winning back the castle of his father from the son of the
murderess of his uncle. Geoffrey of Mayenne and the
rest of the Cenomannian leaders asked of the Duke that
the son of the former owner of the castle, Geoffrey's own
kinsman and vassal, should be restored to the inheritance
of his father, the inheritance which his father held in the
first instance by Geoffrey's own gift. The warfare which
was now waging was waged against the son of the
woman by whom one lord of Saint Cenery had been
treacherously slain. The triumph of right would be
complete, if the banished man were restored to his own,
at the prayer of the first giver. The Duke consented;
Saint Cenery was granted afresh to the representative of
the house of Geroy; Geoffrey saw the castle of his own
rearing once more in friendly hands. The new lord
strengthened the defences of his fortress, and held it as a
post to be guarded with all care against the common
enemy, the son of Mabel.[1]
Two fortresses were thus won from the revolters; and the success of the Duke at both places, his severity at
- ↑ This is told by Orderic, 674 D. He adds, "Ille fere xxxvi annis postmodum tenuit, muris et vallis zetisque munivit, et moriens Guillermo et Roberto filiis suis dereliquit." Yet he lost it for a season to the old enemy. See 706 D.
