Cloud of Witnesses: The French Connection

Separated by only a narrow strip of sea, England and France have often been bitter enemies as well as near neighbours. Over the centuries, the French influence in England has, arguably, been much greater than the converse. 

Most notably, the invasion of England by William Duke of Normandy in 1066 brought with it an infusion of French styles in language, architecture, law and government as well as church procedures and monasticism. It also brought many of William’s aristocratic supporters to English soil, among them Hugh d’Avranches, who was made the first Earl of Chester in 1071. He appears in a window in the chapter house of Chester Cathedral where he is depicted as a fighting man in Norman battle dress. He has short hair and a Zapata moustache, and he holds a huge sword and a shield.

Hugh d’Avranches, popularly known as Hugh Lupus because of the wolves’ heads in his family crest, was born in about 1047 and probably came to England in 1066 with his father, a trusted supporter of the Duke of Normandy. Five years later King William I (as the duke now was) made him the first Earl of Chester, in which capacity he developed a close relationship with Anselm, a Benedictine monk from Normandy who, after stormy altercations with King William II, became archbishop of Canterbury in 1093. Through Anselm’s promptings, Hugh founded the Benedictine abbey of St Werburgh in Chester, named after a 7^th century princess of the kingdom of Mercia whose saintly relics had been brought to Chester in the late 9^th century and buried in the church of St Peter and St Paul, now the site of the Cathedral. 

One of the wealthiest and most powerful magnates of his day, Hugh d’Avranches acquired the nickname of ‘le gros’ on account of his gluttony. He spent much of his time fighting against the Welsh, and in 1081 he had the King of Gwynedd, Gruffudd ap Cynan, imprisoned in Chester castle. For a while Hugh was ruler over most of North Wales, but he lost some of his lands in the Welsh revolt in 1094. He died in 1101. His son Richard married Matilda of Blois, a granddaughter of William I, but they were both drowned – together with William Adelin, the only legitimate heir to the English throne - when their ship capsized off the Normandy coast in 1120. With Richard’s death, the earldom of Chester passed to Hugh d’Avranches’s nephew, Ranulf de Briquessart.

Known as Ranulf le Maschin (‘the younger’), he, like his uncle Hugh, is depicted in a window in the chapter house at Chester. Ranulf was born in 1070 and acquired major land-holdings in England when he married Lucy Bolingbroke, an Anglo-Norman heiress. This prestigious marriage placed Ranulf close to King Henry I, and he accompanied the monarch in his forays against his upstart brother, Robert Curthose.

Away from military duties, Ranulf served Henry as a semi-independent governor of the king’s lands in the north-west of the country, including Cumberland and Westmorland. He lacked any status or title, but he had enough power to keep order in the territory and was untroubled by royal interference. But the border with Wales was always vulnerable to attack from a resurgent Welsh army under the leadership of the freed King Gruffudd, and in 1095 Chester was stormed and looted. In response, King Henry gave Ranulf more power in the region by elevating him to the earldom of Chester, a title that he held until his death in 1129 when, like his uncle Hugh, he was buried at St Werburgh’s abbey.

These two militaristic earls of Chester, Hugh d’Avranches and Ranulf de Briquessart, look down at us from their windows in the chapter house (and, in Hugh’s case, from a window in the cloister as well.) A remarkable feature of the story is the improbable collaboration between Hugh, an overweight French warrior and magnate, and Anselm, an Italian Benedictine monk whose writings on the incarnation of Jesus and the meaning of his death had a profound impact on the course of Christian theology. As we glance up at Hugh in the chapter house, we might take a moment to give thanks for his part in establishing Chester as a powerful centre of Christian witness in the north-west. Without his unlikely association with Anselm, the Cathedral might not be here today.