Private wars not interrupted by the invasion.
Action of Robert of Bellême. rare cases when the Duke himself stepped in as a judge or as a party in the strife. Those who loved nothing so well as slaughter, plunder, and burning, had now to make up for the many years during which the strong hand of William the Great had kept them back from those enjoyments. They had no thought of stopping, though the kings of England and France, or all the kings of the earth, should appear in arms on Norman soil. Many a brilliant feat of arms, as it was deemed in those days, must be left to local remembrance; even at events which closely touched many of the chief names of our story we can do no more than glance. The revolt of Maine will have to be spoken of at length in another chapter; among strictly Norman affairs we naturally find Robert of Bellême playing his usual part towards his sovereign and his neighbours, and we find the tower of Ivry and the fortified hall of Brionne ever supplying subjects of strife to the turbulent nobles. We see Robert of Bellême at war with his immediate neighbour Geoffrey Count of Perche,[1] and driving Abbot Ralph of Seez to seek shelter in England.[2] We also find him beaten back from the walls of Exmes by Gilbert of Laigle and the other warriors of his house, the house of which we have heard in the Malfosse of Senlacomnibus." Moreover "multas villas combussit multasque prædas hominesque adduxit." The truth is that the curse of private warfare drew the best men, no less than the worst, into the common whirlpool; and, once in arms, they could not keep back their followers from the usual excesses, even if any such thought occurred to themselves. Cf. Ord. Vit. 890 B for another mention of Geoffrey.]
- ↑ The character of this Count Geoffrey (son of the Rotrou who figures in the war of the Conqueror and his son, N. C. vol. iv. pp. 637, 639) as drawn by Orderic (675 D; see above, p. 183) is worth studying; "Erat idem consul magnanimus, corpore pulcher, et callidus, timens Deum et ecclesiæ cultor devotus, clericorum pauperumque Dei defensor strenuus, in pace quietus et amabilis, bonisque pollebat moribus." Yet he was also "in bello gravis et fortunatus, finitimisque intolerabilis regibus et inimicus [cis?
- ↑ See above, p. 184.
