History of the lords of Tournai of the house of Mortagne

Bibliography
The lords 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.^e century. M. d'Herbomez rightly observes that the first castellans 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. "Naturally, at the outset, the duties of the chatelains were personal, as they were merely officers chosen and appointed by the count. But when feudalism became organised, these officials became vassals of the count; they received their castellany in fief from him; the functions they performed became the attributes of this fief, and the castellans, entering the feudal hierarchy, became hereditary.
The Tournai castellany can be identified with the Tournaisis, whose boundaries are the Scheldt, the Scarpe, the Elnon and the Espierre. However, the city of Tournai and its suburbs do not form part of this area, nor do the parts of the seigneuries of Saint-Amand and Mortagne that lie between the Scarpe and Elnon rivers. A general outline of the destiny of the castellany and the policy followed by the castellans concludes the first part. It shows that the castellany was independent of the King of France, the Count of Flanders and the Bishop of Tournai. Only the castle of Tournai was a fief under the authority of the Count of Flanders. As happened in many other towns, the charter of commune granted by Philip-Augustus to the people of Tournai resulted in a significant blow to the authority of the lords. At the end of the 11th^e  In the 16th century, the Count of Flanders and the King of France fought over control of the castellany. The latter eventually prevailed and, on the death of the chatelaine Marie, united the castellany to the crown.
Abel Lefranc
Bibliographical sources :
Histoire des châtelains de Tournai de la maison de Mortagne, by Armand D'HERBOMEZ, former student of the École des chartes, archivist and paleographer. Tournai, Casterman. 2 vols. in-8^e347 and 359 pages.
Sources : http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/bec_0373-6237_1899_num_60_1_452542_t1_0518_0000_2