Alain de Roucy

Coat of arms of Alain de Roucy

Alain de Roucy (* before 1172 on the Ile de France ; † 1221 in Languedoc ) was a French knight and crusader at the beginning of the 13th century .

Origin and name

Alain de Roucy's year of birth is not known; it was first mentioned in 1172 in a document from the Count of Champagne . Family origins cannot be precisely determined either. The Anglo-Norman John le Strange († 1234) called him "Alan de Petraponte" in his notes , with which a reference to the lords of Pierrepont (see House Pierrepont ) residing in the Laonnois region can be made. The name of their ancestral castle is derived from the name of the Roman castrum Petrae Pontis , which was also known in the Middle Ages , on whose site the castle was built. Nevertheless, Alain is known as "de Roucy" in the traditions. One reason for this could be the fact that the Sire Robert de Pierrepont, who could have been a brother of Alain, married the heiress of County Roucy at the beginning of the 13th century and thus transferred this fief to his family. The fact that the name Alain does not otherwise appear in the Pierrepont family speaks against the relationship, while Alain de Roucy had both a son and a grandson with the same first name, so that it can be assumed that this can also be assigned to his ancestors as a lead name .

Another connection between Alain and the County of Roucy could also be through his wife Clémence de Châtillon. This is de Maxime Sars as a daughter of Guermond de Chatillon, Seigneur de Savigny ( House Châtillon ), and Clémence de Roucy suspects in turn a daughter of Hugues Cholet, Count of Roucy ( House Montdidier ), and the Stauferin Richildis of Swabia ( † before 1154) was, a daughter of Duke Friedrich I. A statement about Alain's origin, however, does not result from this, only an indication of why he used the name de Roucy .

Battle of Gisors

→ Main article : Battle of Gisors

The last decade of the 12th century in the north of France was determined by the conflict between King Philip II and his rival, the English King Richard "Lionheart" , who as Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine was Philip's vassal, but it was actually far more powerful than this was.

Alain de Roucy was first mentioned in the story of the anonymous Ménestrel of Reims around 1260 as a knight in the army of the King of France, who marched into Normandy in September 1198 under the personal orders of the King. But already at Courcelles, not far from Gisors , this army was provided by "Lionheart" on September 28th. In the legendary tale, Roucy stood out for warning his king of the numerical superiority and experience of the opponent, whereupon King Philip called him a coward. However, when the king himself recognized the superiority of the enemy, it was again Roucy who advised the king to flee to the safe castle of Gisors on a fast horse in order to avoid possible captivity. Instead, Roucy should put on the armor of the king and lead the army in battle against Richard "the Lionheart", who was considered the best knight of his time. It is said to have happened that way, and in the battle that followed, Roucy and the other knights of the King of France fought with much bravery and courage, but ultimately had to surrender to the enemy superiority. Alain de Roucy was captured. First he was taken to Vernon Castle and then to Rouen .

The oldest depiction of the Battle of Gisors, which was written down by the English chronicler Roger of Hovden , however, portrays a less heroic picture of the battle. According to this, the army of the French king was in the superior force and was nevertheless defeated by the defeated English king, while King Philip almost drowned in the Epte while fleeing . Roucy himself was lifted from the saddle by "Löwenherz" personally with a push of a lance and then taken prisoner.

How long he remained in captivity is not known, but Roucy was again under the banner of France by 1202 at the latest when King Philip, after Richard's death in 1199, opened the fight against his brother, King John "Ohneland" . Seized all of his continental possessions on April 1st, 1202.

Roucy took part in the military enforcement of this decision in Normandy and was mentioned by name in this context at le Strange. By the year 1206, the rule of the French crown was finally established in the areas north of the Loire ( Anjou , Maine , Normandy ).

Albigensian Crusade

In 1208 Pope Innocent III called. to the crusade against the religious movement of the Cathars , which was widespread in Languedoc , after a papal legate had been murdered there. The so-called Albigensian Crusade started a year later with an army under the leadership of Simon IV. De Montfort . It is not known whether Roucy was among the Crusaders at the beginning of the campaign or whether he joined them later.

The leading nobility of Languedoc, especially Count Raimund VI. of Toulouse , reluctantly joined this venture, as this crusade would, above all, endanger their powerful position in this region. After the crusaders had already raged particularly cruelly in Béziers in July 1209 , they carried out their harshest criminal judgment there after the capture of Lavaur in March 1211. The defenders, 80 knights under Aimery de Montréal , were hanged, the castle mistress Gerauda, ​​Aimery's sister, thrown into a well and slain with stones. The more than 400 Cathars from Lavaur were burned at the largest stake that had been erected by then. After these events, the Count of Toulouse left the crusader army and stood against it. He allied himself with the Count of Foix and included Simon de Montfort in Castelnaudary in September 1211 . In the following battle for the city, Roucy is first mentioned among the crusaders. The two armies finally parted, not without claiming victory for themselves.

The following two years were marked by the fight against the Count of Toulouse, with a climax in 1213. On September 12th of this year, the armies of the Crusaders and the Languedoc met on the plain in front of Muret, 25 km south of Toulouse decisive fight against. In the battle that followed, Alain de Roucy was to perform his most famous armed act.

Battle of Muret

Because the far superior army of the enemy was led by King Peter II of Aragon . A year earlier he became a hero of Christianity ("the Catholic") when he and the other Christian kings of Spain defeated the Muslims at Las Navas de Tolosa . This did not prevent him from taking sides against the papal crusaders, because they conquered and threatened territories, of which he was nominal liege lord. But King Peter proved to be a bad leader, trusting in his superiority, he rejected the defensive plan of the Count of Toulouse as unchivalrous and opened the fight by breaking out of the ranks of his allies with his Catalan knights and charging towards the Crusaders. Montfort took this opportunity and threw his first division of knights against the attacker, which was led by Alain de Roucy and Florent de Ville . These surrounded the Aragonese king and his men and thus isolated them from their allies.

The resulting turmoil is shrouded in legends. It is said that King Peter wore the armor of a simple knight because he wanted to gain fame as such and not as king. His royal armor was worn by one of his knights instead. After Roucy had knocked the supposedly simple knight off his horse, he allowed himself the comment: Je croyais le roi meilleur cavalier! ('I thought this was the king's best knight!'). The knight then replied: C'est que celui-là n'est pas le roi: le roi, c'est moi! ('That one there is not the king, the king, that's me!'). And so it was up to Alain de Roucy to kill the King of Aragon.

Word of the king's death quickly got around in the Languedoc army. Deprived of their leader, order was broken among the ranks of his knights, and soon they were on the run. So the Crusaders won this battle. As a result, Montfort was able to take the city of Toulouse and lead the crusade to a preliminary victory over his opponents.

Battle of Bouvines

→ Main article : Battle of Bouvines

For his decisive role at Muret, Roucy was given lucrative rule over Termes, Dufort and Montréal by Simon de Montfort . But Roucy quickly pushed it back into the fight.

King Johann "Ohneland" had meanwhile entered into an alliance with his nephew, Emperor Otto IV. , With the aim of recapturing the lost territories in France. In the retinue of Mr. Enguerrand III. de Coucy , like Florent de Ville, rejoined the army of King Philip II and went with this to the Anglo-Guelph army led by the emperor to Flanders. There both armies met on July 27, 1214 in the battle of Bouvines. On this day, the French army won one of the most important victories in French history, because this led to the final triumph of King Philip II, who was from now on called Philippe August, in his fight against the Plantagenet dynasty .

Defeat and death

Two years later, Roucy returned to the south. There Raimund (VII.) (Called Raymondet), the young son of the Count of Toulouse, had taken the lead in the resistance against the Crusaders, occupied Beaucaire and besieged the city's citadel. Roucy hurried up again in Montfort's army to relieve the castle. But despite several attacks on the enemy siege army, the crusaders did not succeed in lifting the siege. Finally, Montfort had to give up the city and the citadel in August 1216. During this time, the old Count of Toulouse managed to recapture his capital. Montfort did not hesitate long, so that Roucy moved into his army in 1218 before Toulouse and began the fateful siege of the city, in which on June 25, Simon de Montfort was fatally wounded by a catapult bullet.

The death of the leader of the Crusaders and the succession by his weak son Amaury de Montfort gave the Occitan resistance a boost; So the Counts of Toulouse, Foix and Comminges as well as renegades (Faydits) from Carcassès formed a common army, which in 1219 a crusader army under the brothers Foucaud le bourreau du Lauragais ('the executioner of Lauragais') and Jean de Berzy defeated it at Baziège . Roucy was one of the few crusaders who managed to escape from the battlefield.

But he too found death in Languedoc. While he was defending the castle of Montréal entrusted to him against Raymond VII of Toulouse in 1221, he suffered a head wound from which he finally died.

Alain de Roucy had at least one son who is attested as Seigneur de Neuville (-en-Laonnois). Probably Roucy was already in possession of Neuville, which he could have received after his participation in the Battle of Bouvines. However, the possessions he had received as a crusader in Languedoc did not remain in his family. Termes could be taken over by its previous owner Olivier de Termes after Roucy's death.

A Pierre / Caïer de Pierrepont, Seigneur de Neuville, who could have been the son or grandson of Alain de Roucy, fell on February 8, 1250 during the Sixth Crusade outside the walls of Mansura .

literature

• Natalis de Wailly (ed.): Récits d'un ménestrel de Reims au treizième siècle: publiés pour la Société de l'histoire de France . Renouard, Renouard 1876 ( online - Old French with French annotations).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Comte Maxime de Sars, Le Laonnois féodal III, Paris 1929, p. 25ff, to be read in Schwennicke, Europäische Stammtafeln Volume III.4 (1989) Plate 679A
2. ↑ Schwennicke, plate 677
3. ↑ Rigord , Gesta Philippi Augusti , also reported on the capture of Alains de Roucy at Gisors , in: Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France 17 (1878), p. 49