Dionysius Exiguus

We learned a lot about St. Pachomius and his development of the Eastern Coptic Christian monasteries from a biography written over a hundred years after his death by an Eastern Roman monk named Dionysius Exiguus, which means "Dionysius the Humble."

Born c.470 in Scythia Minor—a Roman province north of Constantinople, between the Danube and the Black Sea—he was a "true Roman" by inclination (according to Cassiodorus).  He was a mathematician and astronomer, a theologian, and was well-versed in canon law. He was fluent in both Greek and Latin. This skill allowed him to translate hundreds of important Greek works into Latin, including the "Life of St. Pachomius." He also translated a history of the discovery of the head of John the Baptist. Some translations attributed to him seem to be the earlier work of Marius Mercator (mentioned previously in a post about forgeries).

He came to Rome when Pope Gelasius I summoned him to organize the papal archives. (Gelasius died 496CE, so Dionysius must have been in Rome by that year.) He translated into Latin 401 ecclesiastical canons, including the apostolic canons and the decrees of the councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Chalcedon, and Sardis, all of which were recorded in Greek, having taken place in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Pope John I in 525 asked him to create a chronology, which he did, using the Julian calendar and tabulating the dates of Easter, that "floating Holy Day" that caused much consternation in the early Church. In the process, Dionysius created a—let's call it a "convention"—that has lasted until today: the use of Anno Domini to describe years since the birth of Christ.

Tomorrow we take a deep dive into those two simple words, what came before, and how they were determined.

Theodorus of Tabannese

After the death of St. Pachomius, the popular Theodorus of Tabannese was passed over as a successor for Petronius, who died three months later, appointing Horsiesius. Horsiesius was perceived as a weak leader, drawing opposition from many of the more tenured monks.

Theodorus, who had always been known for the camaraderie he inspired—early in his time at the Pachomian monasteries he had been nicknamed the "brothers' comforter"—went to the monastery at Tabannese, where there were many monks in rebellion against Horsiesius' authority, and tried to calm them down.

Horsiesius resigned in 350, and Theodorus became the leader of the family of the nine Pachomian monasteries (although he called himself the "vicar" of Horsiesius). Although he had been demoted in his youth by Pachomius for a combination of ambition and insufficient discipline over the monks under him—or perhaps because he was aware of these qualities—he ran the monasteries effectively for 18 years by frequently re-organizing them and moving ambitious leaders around to new posts.

Some of Theodorus' sermons have survived, recorded by his followers, as well as some of his letters, written in Coptic. Three letters that we believe he wrote himself have survived, in which he quotes Scripture and gives advice to the monasteries on topics such as maintaining asceticism, vigilance against sin, and celebrating Passover.

We also know about him from other references. St. Athanasius (c.298 - 373), patriarch of Alexandria, writing a letter to Horsiesius, said of Theodorus:

I have seen your fellow-worker and father of the brethren, Theodore, and in him the master of our father Pachomios. And I rejoiced to see the sons of the Church, and they made me glad by their presence. But the Lord is their recompenser. And as Theodore was about to leave me for you, he said to me: "Remember me." And I said to him: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten, yea let my tongue cleave to my throat if I remember thee not" [Ps. 137:6, LXX.].

It might have comforted Horsiesius that Athanasius thought so highly of Theodorus. When Theodorus died in 568, Athanasius wrote another letter to Horsiesius, praising the deceased, and talking about how the two of them worked well together. In fact, Horsiesius was Theodorus' successor. Horsiesius ran the monasteries until his death in 387.

A lot of what we know about Pachomius and the monastery system he created comes from a later writer, Dionysius Exiguus, who took it upon himself to translate hundreds of religious works into Latin. He was also the man who created the "modern calendar"; I'll explain further tomorrow.

Pachomius' Successors

When St. Pachomius was dying, his followers at the monastery were concerned because he had not yet chosen a successor. Many of them wanted Theodorus of Tabennese (c.314 - 368).

Born into a wealthy Christian family, Theodorus joined a monastery at 14 in Egypt until he heard about the success of Pachomius from a friend and determined that he wanted to go there. He was told that his wealthy background made him unsuitable for the atmosphere that Pachomius was creating in his monasteries, but Theodorus went anyway to Tabannese, one of the Pachomian monasteries.

Admired by Pachomius and his fellow monks, Theodorus came to be called the "brothers' comforter" because of his kindness and support toward his peers. Pachomius eventually made him the steward of Tabennese when Pachomius retired to another of his monasteries, Pbow. While keeping tabs on Theodorus, Pachomius saw that monks who did not follow the strict rules set down by Pachomius were being allowed to do so without any discipline, so Pachomius demoted him from authority.

Theodorus became Pachomius' assistant, behaving himself and maintaining the popularity he had with his fellow monks.

When Pachomius became ill, several monks wanted Theodorus to agree to assume control of the monastery. Theodorus agreed that he would do so, but Pachomius recovered and found out that Theodorus had been ready to take control. He exiled Theodorus, but eventually forgave him and allowed him to return without any special rank.

When Pachomius died in 348CE, he had named as his successor Petronius, who had been overseeing some of the Pachomian family of monasteries. Petronius died three months after Pachomius, however, and appointed Horsiesius, who had been overseeing the monastery at Sheneset. Horsiesius, however, resigned in 350, and finally Theodorus was placed in charge.

Tomorrow I'll tell you a little more about Theodorus, and that the story of Horsiesius wasn't finished when he resigned.

St. Pachomius

St. Anthony the Great is credited with being the first monk in that he did not just live an ascetic life, but also he removed himself from civilization and went into the desert. The eremitical (hermit) life appealed to many in the years to follow, but not everyone had the self-discipline to lead that kind of life. This is where Pachomius was needed.

St. Pachomius (c.292 - 348) was born a pagan in Egypt. Drafted into military service by the Roman army at the age of 21, he was put on a ship with several other conscripts heading toward Thebes. There he noticed how Christians kindly brought food daily to the conscripts.

When he left the army a few years later, he investigated Christianity and converted in 314. After seven years as a hermit, he traveled to where St. Anthony was living, modeling his life after Anthony's solitary example. Then, however, a vision told him to create a community where others could join him.

Hermits had clustered together in the same area before, but Pachomius created an organized structure for monks who actually lived and worked together, holding their possessions in common and following a similar schedule. This style of monastic tradition is called cenobitic, a Latin word from the Greek words for "common" [κοινός] and "life" [βίος].

He created the first community shortly after this vision; the first person to join him was his brother John. Many more were to follow. Pachomius built eight monasteries, and the trend caught on: by the time of his death there were hundreds of monks in Egypt following his guidance. He was referred to as "Abba" ("father"), from which the terms "abbot" and "abbey" come. He also wrote the Rule of Pachomius, creating guidelines for communities. It is written in the Coptic (Egyptian) language. He is also given credit for inventing the Prayer Rope to aid in repetitively reciting prayers.

Pachomius never was ordained as a priest. St. Athanasius visited him and wanted to ordain him in 333—Pachomius, like Athanasius, had proven to be a vocal opponent of Arianism—but Pachomius did not want ordination. He died on 9 May 348, we assume from plague.

When he had fallen ill and the end seemed near, he had not named a successor. Many of his followers wanted one monk—a man who was looked up to by many—to assert himself, but Pachomius had different ideas. The succession got a little tricky over the next few years. I'll talk tomorrow about dissent that might have ended the monastery.

A Personal Note

Just jumping in for a post that is personal as well as related to this blog.

To the right of these words you can see the advertisements to the two medieval mystery novels I self-published on Amazon many years ago. Knowing that no one would necessarily trust an unknown author, I priced the first at $1.99 and the second at $2.99 (assuming that if you're buying the second you've read the first and liked it and would be willing to take a bigger gamble).

I was absolutely surprised and delighted to find that someone recently not only bought them, not only read them, but also liked them enough to write a glowing review in which she accurately describes what I was trying to accomplish when I wrote them.

If you've ever glanced at the covers to the right and wondered if they were worth the risk of $1.99, or even $2.99, the review on Daily Kos by Dr. Lori, who has a Ph.D. in medieval manuscripts, might entice you.

The link is here.

Thanks (as always) for reading.

The Prayer Rope

We've been talking about the origin of the Rosary lately and its promotion by Alan de la Roche, but it wasn't the only or earliest aide to memory when reciting prayers. The precursor to the Rosary or "proto-Rosary" was the prayer rope.

In the early years of the spread of Christianity, the Eastern Mediterranean developed some practices and philosophies that were different from Rome and Europe. By the 4th century CE we know that some ascetics and hermits who withdrew from the world to pray all day used prayer ropes to keep themselves on track.

The prayer rope is a knotted cord designed to be handled during prayer so that one could feel one's way from knot to knot and keep an accurate count of recitations. The typical prayer rope might have 100 knots, a nice round number of prayers. Ropes can be found with 150 knots (for the number of Psalms), 60, 50 (which became the standard number of Hail Marys for the Rosary), 41 (one better than the days of fasting in the desert), and 33 (for the years of Jesus' life on Earth).

Traditionally it is made of wool and dyed black, to remind the user of the blackness of their sin. It was in a loop, with a cross or tassel attached to the joining of the two ends. You work your way through it with the left hand, keeping the righthand free to make the sign of the Cross at appropriate times.

Although the Rosary was sometimes worn as a necklace to remind one to pray and as spiritual protection, the prayer rope was not used as decoration.

Its creation is attributed to St. Pachomius, about whom you will learn more tomorrow.

Alan de la Roche

Alan de la Roche (also known as Alanus de Rupe) was born in Brittany c.1428; he joined the Dominican Order in 1459 in Paris, studying there and becoming well-known for his education in theology and philosophy.

He became a teacher in many locations in France and Germany. At Rostock in Germany in 1473 he was declared Master of Sacred Theology (a post-graduate degree that can stand on its own or be considered an intermediate step between Masters and doctorate programs). As famed as he was for his teaching career, he is best known now for his championing of the Rosary.

Dominican tradition holds that St. Dominic despaired at the ineffectiveness of his preaching against the Albigensian heretics, and prayed to the Virgin Mary for help. In a vision she told him to use her psalter along with preaching. A psalter was usually a book of the Psalms, but in this case it was the recitation of 150 Hail Marys. Alan claimed that the Virgin Mary had shown him a vision of how this came about with Dominic.

This account was never mentioned in Dominic's lifetime, and in the 17th century it was concluded by religious scholars that the story was concocted by Alan de la Roche to add weight to his belief that the Rosary should be more widely used.

Rather than 150 Hail Marys, Alan promoted the idea of 50 prayers: five decades of Hail Marys, interspersed with some other prayers like the Our Father. He devised three sets of mysteries of the Rosary—the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious—each reflecting significant events in the lives of Christ and Mary. Pope John Paul II added a fourth set, the Luminous Mysteries.

Alan also claimed that Mary offered him 15 promises that would come true for anyone who prayed the Rosary. These promises included special protection, not dying without the sacraments of the Church, deliverance from Purgatory, aid from Mary in your necessities, and more.

Long before the Rosary, however, there were other aids to memory during prayer, like the prayer rope used in the first few centuries by hermits and monastics. We'll talk about those tomorrow.

The Rosary

The Rosary is a series of linked beads designed to aid your memory while praying. Many faiths have used something similar, often simply calling them prayer beads. The Catholic Rosary begins with the Creed, the Our Father, three Hail Marys and the Doxology ("Glory Be"), and is followed by five "decades" of an Our Father and ten Hail Marys.

The term "Rosary" was not recorded until the year 1597, but the device itself had been around in various forms. How did this particular form of prayer beads start?

There are various stories to explain it. One, mentioned yesterday, is that Peter the Hermit invented it. Another says that it was St. Dominic who introduced it. The Dominic version claims he did not exactly invent it; rather, it was "given" to him in a vision by the Blessed Virgin Mary. This story came about long after his death, however, and during his lifetime was never mentioned.

The idea of a memory aid goes back a long way in Christianity. In the 3rd century CE Christian hermits and monks would use stones or knotted ropes to help them keep their place during the repetitive nature of prayers, such as reciting the 150 Psalms, or praying the Our Father 150 times.

In the early 1400s, Dominic of Prussia "organized" the decades of Hail Marys into the Mysteries: Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious. There are five of each Mystery, describing different events in the life of Mary and their importance. (An additional set was introduce by Pope John Paul II in October 2002: the Luminous Mysteries.)

Still, the Rosary was not widely used; that is, until a Dominican friar and mystic and theologian came along. Tomorrow I'll introduce you to Alan de la Roche.

Peter in Jerusalem

When the main body of the First Crusade reached the Holy Land, Peter the Hermit joined them as a member of the council that made decisions. Peter had drummed up so much support for the Crusade that he was welcome, even though his "People's Crusade" (see the last few posts) had gone spectacularly off the rails.

In fact, Guibert of Nogent, a contemporary of the Crusade who wrote a chronicle of it, refers to Peter's status in 1098 as a "fallen star." His preaching continued, however. During the Siege of Antioch, for instance, Guibert gives Peter credit for making a stirring speech to the starving Crusaders that inspired them to leave the city and attack the larger Muslim force and achieve victory. (Part of that inspiration may have been from the discovery of the Holy Lance.)

The march to Jerusalem included besieging the town of Arqa, during which it is recorded that Peter was given responsibility as treasurer of alms.

Peter was present at Jerusalem when the Crusade captured the city, and spent some time there. According to The Alexiad, the account written by Anna Comnena of that time from the viewpoint of the reign of her father, Alexios I:

He saw many forbidden and wicked things occurring there… so he sought out the patriarch of the holy church of Jerusalem and asked why gentiles and evil men were able to pollute holy places and steal away offerings from the faithful, using the church as if a stable, beating up Christians, despoiling pilgrims through unjust fees, and inflicting on them many sufferings." The frustrated patriarch threw up his hands in exasperation: "Why do you reprimand me and disturb me in the midst of my fatherly cares? I have but the strength and power of a tiny ant when compared to those proud men. We have to redeem our lives here by regular tribute payments or else face death-dealing punishment."

Perhaps he was discouraged by what he saw in Jerusalem. In 1099 he went to Latakia (Laodicea) in Syria, and from there sailed west and home. On his way home, with Count Conon of Montaigou, a storm threatened their ship, but subsided when they prayed and promised to found a church if they survived. The two later founded Neufmoustier Abbey in Huy.

It seems he founded an Augustinian monastery in France, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The contemporary Albert of Aachen claims Peter died there in 1131 as its prior, but this must be a fabrication. In the records of Neufmoustier Abbey we find an entry for 8 July 1115:

...the death of Dom Pierre, of pious memory, venerable priest and hermit, who deserved to be appointed by the Lord to announce the first to the holy Cross.

We assume this is more accurate than Albert, especially since Albert had a tendency to presume things that suited him. And because Neufmoustier contains Peter's tomb (see illustration).

One item attributed to Peter that cannot be proven is that he invented the rosary, presumably as a guide for the illiterate in their prayers. Tomorrow we'll look at what history we know about the rosary.

The People's Crusade Ends

After the terrible situation (for the People's Crusade) at Xerigordos, where several thousand German Crusaders were converted to Islam or killed, some Turkish spies infiltrated the main Crusader camp before news of the Xerigordos outcome was known and spread rumors that Nicaea had similarly been captured by the Germans.

Peter the Hermit, who had been leading the Crusade, had gone back to Constantinople for supplies. In his absence, the Crusade—under the leadership of a Frenchman, Geoffrey Burel—convinced the fighting men they should go right away to Nicaea, leaving the women and children and the old and sick behind. As a result, 20,000 headed toward Nicaea on 21 October 1096.

The Turks were waiting on the road to Nicaea and ambushed the Europeans in a narrow wooded valley in an event called the Battle of Civetot. Most of the men were slaughtered. Any women and children who tagged along were spared. A few thousand, including Burel, fled to a nearby abandoned fortress, besieged by Turks until a Byzantine army arrived to rescue them.

Of the 40,000 who set out after meeting Peter the Hermit in Cologne, the 3,000 who survived the Turks' ambush were all that remained of useful Crusaders. Peter, with a fraction of the original group, spent the winter of 1096/97 in Constantinople, waiting for the main army to arrive, after which they continued to the Holy Land.

The events referred to as the "People's Crusade" were now concluded. What happened after was all part of the official First Crusade. Since I started several days ago intending to discuss Peter the Hermit, however, let us follow him to Palestine where his story continues. (The illustration is from a 1270 French manuscript with Peter showing the way to Jerusalem.)

The People's Crusade Continues

After the Rhineland Massacres, the People's Crusade continued from Cologne toward the Holy Land. Some took boats down the Danube. Some marched over land into and through Hungary, meeting up again at the Danube on the borders of the Byzantine Empire, at a town called Zemun.

A dispute over prices turned into a riot between the Crusaders and the townspeople, in which 4000 Hungarians were killed. The Crusaders crossed into Belgrade, pillaging and burning the city. Days later, at the town of Niš, its commander promised Peter the Hermit that he would provide food and an escort to Constantinople if the Crusaders would depart immediately.

This was agreed to, and all would have been well if some Germans in the group had not started a fight with some locals and set fire to a mill. The garrison of Niš came out and attacked the Crusaders, supposedly killing about 25% of the 40,000-person contingent. (The illustration shows the fighting at Niš.)

They regrouped and arrived on 12 July at Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, where a Byzantine escort met them and led them without further incident to Constantinople on 1 August.

Emperor Alexios I, whose initial request for aid from the West motivated the Crusade, now had 30,000 extra people on his hands. He may have had news of their prior behavior. He ferried them immediately across the Bosphorus, but warning Peter not to engage the Turks until the main (and better armed) army showed up.

The group was eager to push on to the Holy Land, however, and harassed towns along the way, finally reaching the suburbs of Nicaea. A 6,000-strong contingent of Germans marched on the castle of Xerigordos and occupied it. (Xerigordos' exact location is not known. Guibert of Nogent said it was four days' journey from Nicaea.)

They were now firmly in Seljuk Turk territory, and one of the generals of Kilij Arslan laid siege to Xerigordos. The water supply was insufficient, and there are reports that the Crusaders drank their own urine and the blood of donkeys to survive. The Turks prevailed, and the occupiers of Xerigordos were forced to either convert to Islam or be killed.

I wish I could say that this was the worst of their problems, and the rest of the People's Crusade went smoothly. Unfortunately, there was more to come. See you next time.

The Enactments of SHU"M

The Roman Catholic Church and its followers tried many times to make up sets of rules for interaction with Jews. The Fourth Lateran comes to mind, as does Henry III's Statute of Jewry in 1253 (and his founding of the Domus Conversorum in 1232).

Likewise, Jewish communities sometimes had to establish their own set of policies and practices to govern themselves. After the Rhineland Massacres, three towns of the Rhineland banded together to devise a set of regulations for the future.

The towns were Speyer, Worms, and Mainz, who had suffered in spring of 1096 as the People's Crusade led by Peter the Hermit ravaged them. The leading Jews of the towns created the Enactments of SHU"M. SHU"M comes from the Hebrew names of the towns: Shpira, Vermayza, and Magentza.

The Enactmnets did not happen immediately, though they were a response to further strife that was started because of 1096. Itinerant merchants felt that travel was no longer safe, and so they settled in the towns and became local merchants or, in many cases, moneylenders. This situation created more contact between Jew and Gentile, leading to more problems between the two groups. The Crusades' need for funds also meant more and heavier taxes being levied against Jews.

The first example of such a system appeared in France. About 1160, a synod was held in Troyes, arranged by Jacob ben Meir (1100 - 1171, depicted above), a well-respected teacher (and grandson of Rashi). He, his brother, and over 250 rabbis from all over France gathered to create decrees that would affect the Jewish community as well as when they would rely on Gentile legal systems as opposed to their own. Some of the decisions they wanted people to accept were:

• A strengthening of a ban on polygamy.
• A dispute between Jews over money should not go to a secular court; the beth din, the rabbinical court, should settle it. It should only go to secular authorities if one of the people involved would not accept the decision of the beth din.
• In the case of the Jewish communities own tax system (called the kehillah), a person disputing the tax should pay it first and then bring his or her case to the beth din.
• If you offer a space you own to be used as a synagogue, you cannot restrict it to only certain members of the congregation. You just allow or deny all members.

SHU"M happened a couple generations later, at a synod in Mainz, agreeing to most of the decisions out of Troyes, but adding their own:

• Anyone who informed on another Jew was served with a cherem (essentially an excommunication) until restitution was made.
• No exceptions to kehillah-imposed taxes.
• Lending money to other Jews must follow strict adherence to the halakhot, the body of Jewish law.
• It was prohinbited to call anyone a mamzer (bastard, or any result of an improper relationship).
• If someone dies leaving young children, the estate may be used for their education, even if the deceased left other instructions in their will.

Many of these are still followed, and they have been added to over time.

This has been an important aside after the post on the Rhineland Massacres. Time tomorrow to go back to see what the People's Crusade was getting up to once they reached the Mediterranean.

The Rhineland Massacres

After Peter the Hermit gathered his followers in Cologne, Germany, on Holy Saturday in 1096 (12 April), they prepared to go south and eventually toward the Holy Land as part of the First Crusade. (Technically, at this stage they were not part of the army called by Pope Urban II, and have been referred to as the People's Crusade.)

This was tens of thousands of peasants in a poorly organized militia, moving through unfamiliar territory with the noble goal of doing something "Christian"; unfortunately, this mood of theirs made them see any non-Christian as a target.

This anti-non-Christian mindset motivated them to attack Jews. There were some specific factors we might consider. One was the need for money: they were peasants, and travel expenses (food, shelter) were beyond their meager personal means. Thousands of people crossing unfamiliar land was always stressful for the natives. Jews were a popular source of quick funds by simply stealing from them or even killing them.

Also, to the Christian citizens of France and Germany, Jews were responsible for the Crucifixion of Christ, and so clearly were the enemy of Christians. This was the beginning of "Crusade fever" that inspired anti-Jewish violence for the next couple centuries at least.

Another factor was the presence of Count Emicho of Leiningen. While Peter's people were likely to threaten Jews in the towns through which they passed, bribes of money smoothed this over and people were usually unharmed. He joined Peter the Hermit and brought along his own history of attacking Jews. Emicho shortly before all this was known to attack Jews and force conversions on them.

Peter supposedly carried with him a letter from the Jews of France requesting of the Jews of the Rhineland that they support the Crusade. A Jewish chronicler of the mid-12th century, in the Solomon bar Simson Chronicle, records that Peter's arrival caused such fear in a town that the Jews readily supplied him with his needs.

Jewish communities in Mainz, Speyer, and Worms were ransacked before the Crusaders moved on. These three prominent populations of Jews banded together to enact a series of rules and policies concerning interactions between Jews and Gentiles. We may continue Peter the Hermit's People's Crusade a little later, but first let's take a look at the Enactments of SHU"M.

Peter the Hermit

After the announcement of the First Crusade, a French Roman Catholic priest from Amiens named Pierre took it upon himself to preach the Crusade around the countryside. He chose to go about in a long coarse robe, forsaking shoes and hat. Riding a donkey, he preached all over Italy. Outside Italy, he preached around Huy in Lower Lotharingia. In fact, tradition in Huy says he was there when the word came (not at Clermont for the announcement, as some historians reported), and immediately started preaching to anyone who would listen of the need to join up.

His mother's name was Alide Montaigu, so he may have been related—albeit distantly—to the Counts of Montaigou. He certainly traveled with Count Conon on the Crusade itself, as seen in yesterday's post.

He tried to get to Jerusalem on his own, not waiting for the Crusading army called by Pope Urban II. He persuaded thousands of lower-class folk to follow him to the Holy Land. The result was thousands of  unskilled men and women with little means to pay their way across Europe (and some knights as well). This "pre-Crusade" is known as the People's Crusade, as I explained 13 years ago.

Why did many thousands of poorer people join? Millenarianism, the belief that the Year 1000 could bring the Apocalypse, may have been a concern for people who wanted to expiate their sins with a grand gesture. There had been a recent outbreak of ergot poisoning that seemed like an end-time sign. Sights in the sky recently—a meteor shower, a lunar eclipse, the Aurora Borealis, a comet—also created fear.

Peter claimed a divine mandate from Christ to preach the Crusade, and even claimed he had a letter to prove it. He had everyone to whom he preached agree to meet at Cologne in Germany, which they did on 12 April 1096, Holy Saturday.

Their religious fervor became indiscriminate in their choice of enemy, finding people to kill before they ever left Germany. Tomorrow we'll learn about the shameful Rhineland Massacres.

Count of Montaigou

When Huy became the first municipality north of the Alps to be granted city rights, its right to some self-governance meant Conon, Count of Montaigou, lost some of his rights over it.

Conon was connected to Huy from an early age. His parents were Gozelon of Montaigou and Ermengarde de Grandpré. Ermengarde's father was Count of Clermont, and after his death that title passed through Ermengarde to her son. Count Gozelon died in 1064, succeeded by his eldest, Conon, a couple years before Huy's city rights charter. Conon up to that time was a knight who had only appeared as witness to a few royal charters.

Records are scarce for that part of Lotharingia, but a 1 January 1071 document confirms that he was then known as Count Conon, whose liege lords were Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and the Duke of Lower Lotharingia, Godfrey IV "The Hunchback." (Godfrey has appeared a few times in this blog, as godfather to Godfrey of Bouillon and as former husband of the widowed Matilda of Tuscany.)

Conon and his wife, Ida, had four sons: Gozelon, Lambert, Henry, and Theobald. Theobald died young. Henry became an archdeacon and provost. Lambert became count of Montaigou and Clermont after his father's death. Gozelon's fate? You'll see shortly.

Conon was one of the nobles who agreed to the Treuga Dei, the Truce of God. Conon loved justice. When Bishop Otbert of Liège tried to depose Abbot Theodoric II of the monastery of Saint Hubert, Conon supported Theodoric.

When the First Crusade came along, Conon went along with his two eldest sons under Godfrey of Bouillon's banner. Among the first to arrive at Constantinople, Conon was one of the men negotiating with the representative of Emperor Alexios I. Gozelon died before reaching Jerusalem, but Conon and Lambert fought in Jerusalem and lived.

While Conon was returning home (a legend says) with Peter the Hermit and some men of Huy, a storm endangered their ship. They prayed that they would build a church if they survived, at which the storm immediately subsided. Conon and Peter founded the Augustinian canonry of Neufmoustier in Huy, where (according to tradition), Peter lived until his death in 1115 and was buried there. It was said that if you could not make it to Jerusalem after vowing to go, a pilgrimage to the abbey was sufficient to fulfill the vow. (Some of the ruins are shown above.)

Conon himself died on 1 May 1106, succeeded by Lambert, who lived at least until 1140.

Peter the Hermit, although he has cropped up in a few blog posts over the years, has never been fully discussed. Let's resolve that next time.