Tea at Trianon: The Mugging Of Bishop Adhemar of Puy

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, July 12, 2021

The Mugging Of Bishop Adhemar of Puy

From The Historian's Hut:

Adhemar of Monteil (also spelled Ademar) became the bishop of Puy in 1077 and would continue overseeing the French bishopric for over two decades. He is best remembered for his involvement in the First Crusade, which was sparked into life by Pope Urban II in 1095. Bishop Adhemar served as the papal legate in charge of overseeing this armed pilgrimage and he traveled with the crusader army on its campaign. For the Journey, Bishop Adhemar joined the army of the Crusader, Count Raymond IV of Toulouse (r. 1093-1105), one of the most preeminent of the Crusader lords.

During the First Crusade, all of the major Crusader contingents passed through lands of the Empire of Constantinople, led at that time by Emperor Alexios I (r. 1081-1118). Some Crusader warbands trekked into Italy and crossed the Adriatic Sea by ships. Others, took land routes, passing through Slavonia or Hungary. As for Count Raymond and Bishop Adhemar, they took the Slavonian route. By marching on land instead of crossing the sea, they spared themselves the unpredictable weather that sank several crusader ships that season, but traveling by road had its own perils. Unfortunately, the armies of the First Crusade, as well as those of the short-lived Peoples Crusade before it, had a bad habit of illegally scavenging and stealing from the communities through which they traveled. Therefore, communities that lay in the path of Crusader armies were extremely suspicious and guarded—quick to lash out at Crusaders that stepped out of line. This happened to Crusaders in Hungary, where the king mobilized an army against them, as well as in the land of the Bulgarians, who also attacked misbehaving Crusaders. Count Raymond and Bishop Adhemar faced similar hostility from locals they encountered (and commandeered supplies from) as they traveled their Slavonian route. The resistance Raymond and Adhemar faced, however, was poorly organized and therefore they were able to keep on marching toward Constantinople with little difficulty.

Although the count and bishop were reaching better-patrolled land, that did not mean that they could relax their guard. At that time, the Empire of Constantinople was a war-torn place, crawling with a wide variety of hostile peoples. As the story goes, Bishop Adhemar came into awkward contact with one of these aggressive groups. In his case, he reportedly ran into a band of Pechenegs (often called the Patzinaks), a formidable people who had been a great menace to Constantinople for many years until Emperor Alexios aligned with the Cumans to devastate Pecheneg power in 1091. Despite that calamitous defeat, the Pechenegs apparently still had enough presence in Constantinople’s empire to bizarrely rob and capture Bishop Adhemar. The story was recorded by the Count of Toulouse’s chaplain, Raymond d’Aguilers:

“On a certain day, moreover, when we were in the valley of Pelagonia, the Bishop of Puy, who, in order to find a comfortable resting place, had withdrawn a little distance from the camp, was captured by the Patzinaks. They knocked him down from his mule, robbed him, and beat him severely on the head. But since so great a pontiff was still necessary to the people of God, through God’s mercy he was saved to life. For one of the Patzinaks, in order to obtain gold from him, protected him from the others. Meanwhile, the noise was heard in the camp; and so, between the delay of the enemy and the attack of his friends, he was rescued” (Raymond d’Aguilers, Historia Francorum Qui Ceperunt Iherusalem, Krey translation 64-67). (Read more.)