Bibliography The castellans we are going to discuss were never prominent figures. However, they were of particular importance due to the situation of the territories in which they were masters, territories situated between Flanders and Hainaut, and which aroused the envy not only of the sovereigns of these two counties, but of the kings of France themselves. Mr d'Herbomez begins by establishing the origins of the lords of Tournai from the House of Mortagne. The first of these lords, according to the testimony of Herman, abbot of Saint-Martin de Tournai, was a certain Évrard, son of a sister of the bishop of Noyon and Tournai, Rabod. Perhaps the author could have made some useful comparisons with the lords of Noyon, about whom the same Herman provides some curious information. It is more important to establish the relationship between the lords of Tournai and those of the Count of Flanders, to whom the Tournaisis region seems to have been attached at the beginning of the eleventh century. Mr d'Herbomez rightly observes that the first lords in Flanders were like the lieutenants of the county. At first they were merely the guards of a castle. But soon they performed certain military, administrative and judicial functions for the count in the territory surrounding their castle. They led the men of their castellany to the Count's army. In the Count's absence, they presided over the court of his vassals; they were appointed to be the protectors, the avoués, of the property that the monasteries might possess in the castellany, etc. This was undoubtedly the case for the former lords of Tournai. «Of course, originally, the functions...
