The Cartulary of Countess Blanche of Champagne

The Cartulary of Countess Blanche of Champagne

Edited by Theodore Evergates
Copyright Date: 2010
Published by: University of Toronto Press
Pages: 416
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt14jxwcr
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  • Book Info
    The Cartulary of Countess Blanche of Champagne
    Book Description:

    The 443 letters contained in the cartulary deal with practical matters of governance such as homages, fiefs, and the rights of lordship, and are here used by Evergates as a dossier for observing the practices of a major French principality and its aristocracy in the first two decades of the thirteenth century.

    eISBN: 978-1-4426-9750-8
    Subjects: History

Table of Contents

  1. Front Matter
    (pp. [i]-[iv])
  2. Table of Contents
    (pp. [v]-[vi])
  3. List of Illustrations
    (pp. [vii]-2)
  4. INTRODUCTION
    (pp. 3-26)

    The Cartulary of Countess Blanche is unique among medieval cartularies in being drawn up as a personal, commemorative volume rather than as an archival finding aid or security copy.¹ In essence it memorialized Blanche and her singular achievements during twenty-one years as regent countess of Champagne (1201–22). Not only had she preserved the county from a divisive civil war and secured her son’s inheritance, in the process she expanded the borders of the county and definitively subdued its barons, thereby ending any semblance of shared governance in Champagne. The cartulary charts that decisive transformation of the county and of...

  5. EDITORIAL PRINCIPLES
    (pp. 27-28)

    This edition follows the order and original foliation of the cartulary. The texts are virtually identical to those of the Chancery Cartulary from which they were copied. In fact, the scribes of both cartularies made exceptionally accurate transcriptions; discrepancies between the surviving originals and the cartulary copies are few and inconsequential. The accuracy of the cartulary texts is further confirmed by transcriptions made in 1271 directly from the original documents in theLiber Principum(Cartulary-Register 7) andLiber Pontificum(Cartulary-Register 8).¹ If an original document exists, it is edited here in preference to the copy in Blanche’s cartulary, with only...

  6. ABBREVIATIONS
    (pp. 29-32)
  7. THE CARTULARY
    (pp. 33-404)

    Pierre, count of Auxerre and Tonnerre, informs Pope Innocent III that he holds the castle of Mailly and Bazarnes from his lady Blanche, countess of Champagne, as he had held it from her predecessors, but that the bishop (Guillaume) of Auxerre produced a letter in which Pierre is purported to state that he holds the castle from the bishop. Pierre wishes the pope to know that the letter in question is neither his authentic letter nor sealed by his seal, and that the countess has his authentic sealed letter by which he recognizes that he holds Mailly from her.¹

    Sanctissimo...

  8. APPENDIX: RELATED LETTERS NOT IN THE CARTULARY
    (pp. 405-412)
  9. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE LETTERS
    (pp. 413-424)
  10. BIBLIOGRAPHY
    (pp. 425-432)
  11. INDEX RERUM
    (pp. 433-454)
  12. INDEX NOMINUM
    (pp. 455-493)