ROBERT LE FORT
(d. 866). Count of Anjou, Blois, Tours, Auxerre, and Nevers; the earliest known ancestor
of the Capetians. First called “the Strong” (vir strenuus) by the chronicler Regino of
Prüm, who wrote a generation later, Robert was a powerful count best known for leading
the fight against the Vikings. He was one of the great lords whose power was nearly as
well established as that of the Carolingians.
The sources are virtually silent on Robert’s ancestry, but there have been many
ingenious attempts to determine his origins. It seems most likely that he was from the
Rhine region, but the family trees proposed for him by modern scholars have persuaded
few but their creators. When he died fighting the Vikings, his sons, Eudes and Robert I,
were still too young to succeed, although both later became kings of the Franks.
Constance B.Bouchard
Bouchard, Constance B. “The Origins of the French Nobility: A Reassessment.” American
Historical Review 86 (1981):501–32.
Glöckner, K. “Lorsch und Lothringen, Robertiner und Capetinger.” Zeitschrift far die Geschichte
des Oberrheins 89 (1937):301–54.
Levaillain, Léon. “Essai sur le comte Eudes, fils de Harduin et de Guérinbourg, 845–871.” Moyen
âge 47(1937):153–82, 233–71.
Werner, Karl Ferdinand. “Important Noble Families in the Kingdom of Charlemagne.” In The
Medieval Nobility: Studies on the Ruling Classes of France and Germany from the Sixth to the
Twelfth Century, ed. and trans. Timothy Reuter. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1978, pp. 137–
202.
ROBERT OF FLAMBOROUGH
(ca.1135/80–ca. 1219/ 33). Born probably in Flamborough, Yorkshire, Robert became a
canon regular and later subprior at the Parisian abbey of Saint-Victor early in the 13th
century. Contemporary documents refer to him as a canon penitentiary, and indeed his
only known work is the Liber poenitentialis. Robert’s penitential was the first such work
to make available to ordinary priests the important 11th- and 12th-century developments
in canon law on the matter of penance. The Liber poenitentialis was soon followed by
similar handbooks for confessors. Completed between 1208 and 1213, Robert’s
penitential is in the form of a dialogue, a confession between a priest and a penitent.
Although criticized by contemporaries for relying heavily and uncritically on outdated
decretals, the penitential was nevertheless influential and survives in a number of
manuscripts.
E.Kay Harris
Robert of Flamborough. Liber poenitentialis: A Critical Edition, ed. J.J.Francis Firth. Toronto:
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1971.
Kuttner, Stephen, and Eleanor Rathbone. “Anglo-Norman Canonists of the Twelfth Century: An
Introductory Study.” Traditio 7 (1949–51):279–358.
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