Laon uprising
The Laon uprising of Easter 1112 was an uprising of the citizens of Laon against the local bishop, which ended with the bishop's death.
prehistory
In 1106 , a Norman nobleman, Gaudry , who had already been royal chancellor and chaplain in England, was elected Bishop of Laon as a candidate for King Philip I († 1108 ) and against the candidate of the cathedral chapter . However, he was primarily interested in the military and hunting; his best-known trait was a black slave whom he had baptized Jean and who carried out the illegal jobs for him. Jean killed a citizen of the city who had dared to criticize the behavior of the new bishop shortly after Gaudry's arrival in the city, and it was also he who tore the eyes out of another citizen because Gaudry suspected him of being among his enemies belong.
The citizens of Laon were so upset by this and other atrocities of their bishop that they took advantage of Gaudry's absence to organize themselves as a civil parish (Commune) and from the nobles and churchmen who administered the city, for a large sum, a charter, a Constitution, to be approved.
With this constitution, they only paid a fixed annual fee and were no longer responsible for the unlimited financial needs of the bishop. The nobles and the clergy accepted and Gaudry found the charter signed when he returned. Angry at first, he then renounced his old rights as ruler of the city for himself and his successors in return for a large payment of money. The citizens of Laon asked, as was the custom, King Louis VI. to confirm the document, which also happened against the promise of an annual pension to the crown. The church functioned for three years.
Easter - April 18th to April 23rd
When, in 1112 , the silver received by the lavish Gaudry, as well as by the nobles and clergy, was coming to an end, the bishop and his entourage decided to dissolve the congregation and wanted to use the help of the king to help the citizens to prevent to oppose his plan: Gaudry invited Ludwig VI. one to celebrate Easter in Laon. On the Wednesday before Easter, Ludwig VI met. a knight armed with his escort. On Maundy Thursday ( April 18 ), Gaudry tried so doggedly to convince him to annul the charter that he forgot to go to the cathedral and give absolution to the people as usual. The citizens of Laon, informed of what was going on in the city, on the other hand, promised the king to increase the donations to the royal treasure. Gaudry outbid it and released the king, in his capacity as bishop, from the oath he had given the citizens of Laon against the charter: the charter was annulled. The citizens were ordered to return the seal and the city banner to the bishop and to remove the bell that was used to call the community meetings from the bell tower.
The unrest in the city was so great that the king preferred to move from the house in which he was staying to the episcopal palace, which was a separate fortress opposite the city that surrounded him. At the dawn of Good Friday ( April 19 ), Ludwig VI urged. to set off without waiting for Easter, for which he had actually come. The citizens holed up in their homes learned that the bishop, who did not have the money he had promised the king to cancel the charter, was planning to raise taxes from the citizens. This was the drop that broke the barrel: forty citizens agreed to kill the bishop during the Easter procession.
But Gaudry was suspicious; on Easter Sunday ( April 21 ) he did not dare to enter the cathedral, but to hide his fear he took part in the procession, under the protection of his clergy, followed by his servants and the armed noblemen in secret. The procession moved through the streets and passed a vault where the conspirators had hidden. One of them, believing that the moment had come to attack, burst out unexpectedly and shouted the password “Commune! Commune! ". But his hasty action caused the assassination to fail, and the bishop and his people succeeded in driving the attackers to flight. The terrified Gaudry had armed peasants come from his estates that same evening, who occupied the palace and the towers of the cathedral. On Easter Monday ( April 22 ), the bishop and the clergy then marched as usual in a procession to the Abbey of Saint-Vincent outside the walls of the city, where Gaudry was accompanied by an armed escort, however, as the day before. The conspirators had waited for this moment, especially since they also wanted to kill the knights, whom they hated like the bishop, but they refrained from their plan when they noticed that most of them had not appeared.
On Tuesday ( April 23 ), Gaudry sent his peasants back, but urged the nobles to assemble under arms at his palace in the event of unrest. On Wednesday, citizens ransacked several houses looking for grain and cured meat, as if preparing for a siege.
The uprising - April 25th
On Thursday ( April 25 ), groups armed with lances, clubs, axes or swords surrounded the palace and attacked the neighboring cathedral. The nobles came to the aid of the bishop, but when they reached the palace, one by one, were seized and killed.
The insurgents managed to break open the gates of the episcopal palace, even though they were pelted with stones by the bishop's servants, and poured into the building, leaving Gaudry with only time to throw on the clothes of one of his servants and find himself in the basement in one to hide the barrel prepared for such cases. The revolting citizens searched the palace and beat the servants to find out where the bishop was, until one of them finally revealed the hiding place. A group descended into the basement, headed by Thiégaud, a wild and brutal man who levied tolls on a bridge near the city and often mistreated travelers in the process.
Gaudry was discovered, grabbed by the hair, Thiégaud dragged him out of his hiding place, the others threw themselves at the bishop, beat him and chased him into the street. The bishop begged the citizens to spare him, promised them money, his resignation and promised to move far from the city. He was answered with blows and verbal abuse, one hit him on the head with an ax and another in the face, which caused the bishop to die. Thiégaud cut off one of his fingers with a sword in order to take the bishop's ring. The rest tore off his clothes. The naked body was pushed into a corner and pelted with stones and dirt.
Other insurgents broke into the houses of the nobles and looted them, killing the owners and their families. The cathedral burned, as did the surrounding district. The following day an archdeacon came with a servant and took the bishop's body to be buried outside the city without any religious ceremony.
Result
The uprising collapsed as quickly as it started - it just stopped. Nevertheless, the city did not come to rest in the next few years, acts of violence were the order of the day; Thiégaud was caught and hanged after two years. Finally in 1128 they came with Ludwig VI. match. The charter was partially reinstated, but power went to the cathedral chapter, the largest in France, while the bishop, despite his title as peer of France and duke of Laon, no longer played any real role.
literature
- Guibert von Nogent , De vita sue sive monodiarum libri tres, Liber III, 1114-1117