Men at the Center: Redemptive Governance under Louis IX

Chapter Three: Simon de Nesle, Aristocrat

71 Simon de Nesle, Aristocrat In his maturity the man known to historians as Simon de Nesle was a truly lofty aristocrat, connected by marriage to one of France’s greatest families, and a lord of enormous wealth and prestige. Yet, at the time of his birth about the year 1209, there was no expectation that Simon himself would succeed to the principal cluster of family properties, the lordship of Aillysur -Noye, which his father Raoul held. Indeed, when his father died, it was Simon’s elder brother, Jean, who inherited. The childless Jean, however, predeceased Simon, and the seigneurie of Ailly passed to the latter . And then in 1239 another opportune death, that of his uncle, also without issue, enhanced Simon’s holdings through his inheritance of the lordship of Nesle.1 Simon’s marriage to Alix, Amaury de Montfort’s daughter, was another factor in his prestige.2 Amaury de Montfort, as is well known among historians, was the son of Simon de Montfort, the baronial comChapte r Th ree book.indd 71 2012-09-12 15:39:26 72 mander in the early phases of the Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229). The early phases of the Crusade had seen Simon de Montfort conquer a vast territory in southern France and assume the titles and lands of several of the vanquished nobles, most significantly those of the count of Toulouse. The middle years of the Crusade were less happy ones for the house of Montfort. Successful nativist resurgence against the northerners, Simon de Montfort’s death in 1218 at the siege of Toulouse , which had been intended to retake the city, and Amaury’s inability to hold onto many of the territories thereafter inspired the latter to cede his lineage’s claims to Languedoc to the French crown.3 In partial recompense later on, Amaury assumed the honorific office of constable of France.4 Simon de Nesle’s marital union with Alix de Montfort therefore allied him with a noble family of almost mythic significance in the history of the French monarchy. The principal material base for Lord Simon’s career, the lordship of Nesle in Picardy, was also impressive. Nesle itself began life as a small fortified settlement, but by the thirteenth century it possessed, besides the castle chapel, a collegiate church dedicated to the Virgin, serving four parishes, a hospital, and a leprosarium. At least sixty other villages made up the Nesle lordship , whose agricultural lands were notable for their productivity. Additionally the family drew considerable book.indd 72 2012-09-12 15:39:26 73 income from the tolls that had devolved on it from the crown and were generated along the (formally) royal road that ran through the heart of the seigneurie. We know of the extent of these tolls partly through the exemptions from them enjoyed by Cistercian houses, whose charters denote and describe them.5 Given the geographical placement of the family holdings, the Nesle lineage might have leaned either toward the Flemish and their English allies or toward the French in the long-running political and military conflicts between these parties.6 But early on the family cast its lot with the French side and maintained its fidelity.7 The uncle from whom Simon inherited the seigneurie of Nesle had fought in support of the French against the Flemish and German allies of the English at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, the battle, which in the retelling over centuries, was said to have made France.8 The same uncle also fought with Louis VIII in the later phases of the Albigensian Crusade, when that king, Louis IX’s father, endeavored in an impressive military cavalcade to make the crown’s claims to the Montfort conquests a reality. Indeed Lord Jean de Nesle, our Simon’s uncle, was present in Montpensier in the Auvergne at the end of the royal campaign when Louis VIII took to his sick bed. In the presence of the weak and fading king Lord Jean promised fealty to the new king, the boy of twelve who was far away book.indd 73 2012-09-12 15:39:26 74 in Paris and under his mother Blanche of Castile’s tutelage , if the situation should come to that—as it did when Louis VIII died soon after.9 Until his own death in 1239, Simon’s uncle continued to serve the royal family, thus laying the...