General Notes

[Joanne's Tree.1 GED.GED]

2  SOUR S332582
3  DATA
4  TEXT Date of Import: 14 Jan 2004


[daveanthes.FTW]

OCCU Sire de Coucy"Out of this vicious family situation came that 'raging wolf'(in the words of anothe famous abbot, Suger of St. Denis), themost notorious and savage of the Coucys, Thomas de Marle,
son ofthe repudiated Adele.  Bitterly hating the father who had casthis paternity in doubt, Thomas grew up to take part in theceaseless war originally launched against Enguerrand I by thediscarded
husband of Sybil.  These private wars were fought bythe knights with furious gusto and a single strategy, whichconsisted in trying to ruin the enemy by killing or maiming asmany of his peasants and
destroying as many crops, vineyards,tools, barns,a nd other possessions as possible, therebyreducing his sources of revenue.  As a result, the chief victimof the belligerents was their respective
peasantry.  AbbotGuibert claimed that in the 'mad war' of Enguerrand agaisnt theLorrainer, captured men had their eyes put out and feet cut offwith results that could still be seen in the district
in histime.  The private wars were the curse of Europe which thecrusades, it has been thought, were subconsciously invented torellieve by providing a vent for aggression.When the great summons of
1095 came to take the cross and savethe Holy Sepulcher on the First Crusade, both Enguerrand I andhis son Thomas joined the march, carrying their feud toJerusalem and back with mutual hate
undiminished. From anexploit during the crusade the Coucy coat-of-arms derived,although whether the protagonist was Enguerrand or Thomas isdisputed.  One or the other with five companions, on
beingsurprised by a party of Moslems when out of armor, took off hisscarlet cloak trimmed with vair (squirrel fur), tore it inot sixpieces to make banners for recognition, and thus equipped, sothe
story goes, fell upon the Moslems and annihilated them.  Incommemoration a shield was adopted bearing the device of sixhorizontal bands, pointed, of red on white, or in heraldicterms, 'Barry of six,
vair and gules' (gules meaning red).As his mother's heir to the territories of Marle and La Fere,Thomas added them to the Coucy domain to which he succeeded in1116.  Untamed, he pursued a career of
enmity and brigandage,directed in varying combinations against Church, town, and King,'the Devil aiding him,' according to Abbot Suger.  He seizedmanors from convents, tortured prisoners (reportedly
hanging menup by their tesitcles until these tore off from the weight ofthe body), personally cut the throats of thirty rebelliousbourgeois, transformed his castles into 'a nest of dragons and acave
of thieves,' and was excommunicated by the Church, whichungrdled him -- in absentia -- of the knightly belt and orderedthe anathema to be read against him every Sunday in eveyr parishin Picardy.
King Louis VI assembled a force for war upon Thomasand succeeded in divesting him of stolen lands and castles.  Inthe end, Thomas was not proof agains that hope of salvation andfear of hell which
brought the Church so many rich legaciesthrough the centuries.  He left a generous bequest to the Abbeyof Nogent, founded another abbey at Premontre nearby, and diedin bed in 1130.  He had been
married three times.  Abbot Guibertthought him 'the wickedest man of his generation.'What formed a man like Thomas de Marle was not necessarilyaggressive genes or father-hatred, which can occur in
anycentury, but a habit of violence that flourished because of alack of any organ of effective restraint."
REGN @@N4921@@
DATE 24 NOV 1997

OCCU CRUSADER
DATE 26 APR 2000