Liege

Who holds it

Name

Albert of Cuyck

Title

Bishop of Liege

Since

1194-1196

Born

Not pinned

Family

Cuijk

Confidence

high

fr.wikipedia

Lord in 1200

The bishop; his mayor (maieur) and the echevins judge; the advocate of Hesbaye leads the citizens in war.

How things stand that morning

The bishop's, at peace, enjoying its new liberties; its bishop dies on 1 or 2 February.

Charter

Albert of Cuyck's charter of 1196: no taille or corvee on burgesses; service only to relieve a besieged fortress of the principality (if not retaken in fifteen days, under the advocate of Hesbaye); no advocate may demand service or aid; church citation only before the archdeacon with synodal judges; no ordeal and no higher court than the echevins; no arrest without the echevins' judgment except a thief caught in the act; the home inviolable; a year and a day of quiet possession secures a house; price rules for bread, beer and wine; the prince keeps three monopoly sales a year. It codified customs from the 1175 charter of Brustem and survives in a diploma of Philip of Swabia that repeats it word for word.

Council

The echevins (scabini) of Liege under the bishop's mayor; no council of burgesses yet.

Militia

Limited by the 1196 charter to the relief of the principality's fortresses.

Walls and castle

The city wall begun under Bishop Notger (about 1000); the bishop's palace by St Lambert's.

Trade and crafts

Meuse trade, metalwork, cloth, the schools and the clergy's market.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The charter of 1196 is well documented.

Primary sources for Liege

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 Reiner of Saint James, Liège, Reiner of Liège (1197 to 1230, kept year by year). Contemporary annals kept inside Liège. 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
• Dialogue on Miracles, Caesarius of Heisterbach (about 1219 to 1223). Not a chronicle but a Cistercian's book of exempla, full of stories about Cologne, the Rhineland and the Low Countries around 1200: the throne war, usurers, heretics, crusade preachers, knights and townsmen, monks and recruits at Heisterbach, founded in 1189. Read online