Eustache le Moine

Eustache le Moine , actually Eustache Buskes , also Eustache de Boulogne , Witasse le Moine , Eustace the Monk and Der Schwarze Mönch , (* around 1170 in Courset near Boulogne-sur-Mer (today in the Pas-de-Calais department ); † 24 August 1217 , off Sandwich , Kent ) was a northern French pirate and mercenary. His life was described in a novel written in the 13th century.

Life

Eustache was born into a noble family near Boulogne . According to the novel, at a young age he went to Toledo , where he studied black magic . After his return he entered the Benedictine monastery of St. Wulmer in Samer near Calais. When his father Baudoin Buskes was probably killed in a feud at the beginning of the 1190s, Eustache left the monastery to avenge him and to take over his inheritance. At the beginning of the 13th century, Eustache served as Seneschal of Rainald I von Dammartin , the Count of Boulogne . Around 1204 he fell out with the count and was deposed from his office for ruthless behavior and robbed of his property. Eustache had to flee and swore to avenge the injustice suffered. As an outlaw he hid in the woods near Boulogne and led a bandit life in the fight against the count.

Arrival of Louis of France in England in 1216. Chronica Majora of Matthew Paris (1200–1259)

From 1205 the most important dates of his career are also documented by English documents. That year he settled on the Channel Island of Sark , from where he attacked ships in the English Channel . From 1205 he was temporarily privateer in the service of the English king Johann Ohneland , who was at war with France, but he raided most of the ships on his own account. He became a feared pirate who owned 30 ships of his own by 1205. Thanks to his daring maneuvers and the introduction of raised combat platforms, he was often superior to other ships, so that he controlled the English Channel with his ships.

In 1212, however, he changed sides when Count Rainald von Boulogne allied with King John in the war against France. Eustache consequently entered the service of the French King Philip II. In May 1216, he commanded the fleet with which the French Crown Prince Louis VIII landed in England during the First Barons' War . In August 1217, Eustache commanded another fleet with urgently needed reinforcements for Prince Ludwig. Off the coast of Kent they met an English fleet under the legal advisor Hubert de Burgh . In the subsequent naval battle off Sandwich , Eustache's flagship was surrounded and captured by the English. Eustache hid in the bilge , but was discovered and brought on deck. He offered a huge sum for his release, but as a pirate he was so hated by the Cinque Ports sailors that they only gave him the choice between beheading on the ship's rail or on the side of the trebuchet , which was carried as cargo on the deck of the Ship lay, left. It is not known which execution block Eustache finally chose. His head was impaled on a lance and displayed in various parts of England as a deterrent. In the Peace of Lambeth , which the defeated Prince Ludwig had to make the following month, the latter assured that Eustache's brothers would vacate the Channel Islands .

Aftermath

In the French-English war 1202-1214 Eustache played a significant role. He was best known, however, through the old French adventure novel Witasse le Moine , which was written between 1223 and 1284 by an unknown author from Picardy and which depicts the adventures of the Black Monk in verse . Similar to his English contemporary Fulk Fitzwarin , the novel primarily treats his adventurous life as an outcast. The bold pranks with which Eustache outwitted and humiliated the Count of Boulogne are similar to the stories of Fulk Fitzwarin and Robin Hood .

Eustache le Moine at the Battle of Sandwich 1217. Chronica Majora of Matthew Paris (1200–1259)

Roman (modern editions)

• Roman d'Eustache le moine, pirate fameux du XIIIe siècle, publié pour la première fois d'après un manuscrit de la Bibliothèque royale par Francisque Michel . Paris 1834.
• Wistasse le Moine, old French adventure novel of the XIII. Century after the only Paris manuscript , edited by Wendelin Foerster and Johann Trost. Hall 1891 (reprint 1976)
• Li romans de Witasse le Moine, roman du treizième siècle, d'après le manuscrit, fonds français 1553, de la Bibliothèque nationale, Paris , edited by Denis Joseph Conlon. Chapel Hill 1972.
• Eustache le Moine: pirate boulonnais du XIIIe siècle , edited and translated by Édouard Mousseigne, Lille 1996.
• Le roman d'Eustache le Moine, nouvelle édition , edited and translated by AJ Holden and J. Monfrin, Louvain 2005.
• Two Medieval Outlaws: Eustache the Monk and Fouke Fitz Waryn , edited and translated by Glyn S. Burgess, Cambridge 1997. ISBN 0-85991-438-0
• Robin Hood and other outlaw tales , edited by Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren, Kalamazoo 2000, ISBN 9781580440677

literature

• Henry L. Cannon: The Battle of Sandwich and Eustace the monk. In: English Historical Review 27. Longman, London 1912. pdf
• Anne-Dominique Kapferer: Banditisme, roman, féodalité: le Boulonnais d'Eustache le Moine . In: Mélanges Edouard Perroy 1973, pp. 220-240
• Michel Mollat: Philippe Auguste et la mer . In: Robert Henri Bautier (ed.): La France de Philippe Auguste . Paris 1982, pp. 605-623.
• Michel Mollat: Eustache le Moine . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 4, Artemis & Winkler, Munich / Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-7608-8904-2 , column 110.
• Brian J. Levy: Eustache le Moine, ou le combattant à la recherche d'un combat? In: Le monde des heros dans la culture médiévale . Greifswald 1994. pp. 161-170
• Jean Merrien, Histoire des Corsaires . Louvier 2005, ISBN 2-84141-156-7 , pp. 19-28

Web links

• DA Carpenter: Eustace the Monk (c.1170-1217). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mollat, LexMA (1989).
2. ↑ Cannon (1912), p. 665.