A Cluniac house since 928-929, Romainmotier rules a closed territory round the monastery, La Pote or the Terre de Romainmotier, which by 1050 counted twelve villages.
It has dependent peasants in some forty-five other places, land at Apples and at Bannans across the Jura, small daughter priories (Bursins, Mollens, Vufflens-la-Ville, Vallorbe, Lay-Damvautier) and, since the twelfth century, the Neuchatel priories of Bevaix and Corcelles. Its fights with the Grandson and Salins families for land died down early in the twelfth century; it remains under imperial protection.
Who holds it
- Title
- Prior of Romainmotier (Cluniac)
- Since
- Not pinned
- Confidence
- low
No prior for about 1200 is named in the sources read.
What it holds
- La Pote: the closed territory of twelve villages round Romainmotier
- Daughter priories and their land at Bursins, Mollens, Vufflens-la-Ville, Vallorbe and Lay-Damvautier; Bevaix and Corcelles
- Land at Apples and at Bannans (county of Burgundy); peasants in some forty-five other places
How it was acquired
Gift to Cluny in 928-929 and Burgundian royal and noble donations.
How things stand that morning
Held by the priory.
Wealth
Farms, forest and pasture of the Jura foot; iron working at Vallorbe (later records).
Threats
- Noble neighbours and the castellans of Les Clees
Advocates and rivals
Imperial protection, exercised on the ground by the castellan of Les Clees in the name of his lords; the houses of Grandson and Salins, old rivals.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: The territory is described by HLS; which twelve villages made La Pote is drawn from the later bailiwick and is not pinned.
On the map: The villages are those of the later bailiwick of Romainmotier; the twelve villages of about 1050 are not individually named in the sources read.
Primary sources for Empire
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- Annals of Marbach (compiled to 1238, the section on 1198 to 1210 written in the early 13th century). Alsatian annals on the Staufen side of the Upper Rhine. Read online
- Annals of Reiner of Saint James, Liège, Reiner of Liège (1197 to 1230, kept year by year). Contemporary annals kept inside Liège. Read online
- Chronicle of Burchard of Ursberg, Burchard of Ursberg (about 1229 to 1230, reworked by Conrad of Lichtenau). Written a generation later by a fierce partisan of the Staufen and a critic of Innocent III. Read online
- Chronicle of Otto of St Blasien, Otto of St Blasien (about 1209 to 1210). A Swabian continuation of Otto of Freising written from the Staufen side. Read online
- Chronicle of Reinhardsbrunn; Chronicle of St Peter's, Erfurt (Erfurt chronicle in the 13th century; Reinhardsbrunn compilation about 1340 to 1349 from older annals). The two Thuringian chronicles. Read online
- Chronicle of the Slavs, by Arnold of Lübeck, Arnold of Lübeck (about 1209 to 1210). Arnold continues Helmold and writes from Lübeck, close to Danish, Welf and Baltic affairs. Read online
- Royal Chronicle of Cologne (in stages from about 1175 to about 1250; the section on 1198 to 1220 written soon after the events). The fullest German narrative of the throne war from the Welf and Cologne side. Read online
- Chronicle of Hainaut, Gislebert of Mons (about 1195 to 1196). Ends in 1195, so it has no 1200 entries, but it is the indispensable background for Flanders and Hainaut: the career of Count Baldwin V of Hainaut (VIII of Flanders), his union of the two counties, the settlement with Philip over Artois, the rights, castles, fiefs and vassals of Hainaut listed by a man who ran its chancery, and the youth of Baldwin IX, who held both counties in 1200. Read online
8 more in the sources library for The Rhineland, the Low Countries and the Swiss Lands.
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.