The seigniory of Bellême is the field which had the Famille of Bellême 10th century at the year 1113. Located at the borders of the Duchy of Normandy and the County of Maine, it was spread out with its apogee of the Passais in the west with the Saosnois in the east while passing by the Campagne of Alençon and part of the Perche. In addition to its capital, Bellême, its principal cities were Sées, Alençon and Domfront.

A seigniory of margins

Installed on an area of forests and hills, the seigniory of Bellême constituted a long strip of land 120 km. Broad valleys (the Sarthe, Huisne, Mayenne) crossed it north to the south and constituted as many axes of communication between Normandy and the Loire Valley. The lords of Bellême benefitted from this siuation by raising castles above these corridors and by perceiving taxation and tolls of the transit goods.

The seigniory was neighborly of great principalities: Kingdom of France, County of Blois - Chartres, Duchy of Normandy and County of Anjou. Consequently, it concerned various Masters: its chief was to lend homage to the Duc of Normandy, with the Count of Maine (for the Passais and the Saosnois) but also with the King de France (for Bellêmois). This marginal position made the fortune and at the same time the decline of this territory. " strategies implemented by the house of Bellême, in particular the appropriation and the control of the forest ground by the castles, the combination of matrimonial alliances tracing of the networks on both sides of this barrier, with its lords to build and maintain their domination on this coveted space but also to work a territory which finally fell into the Anglo-Norman orbit ". In short, the seigniory of Bellême is a model of “ seigniory of border ” (Gerard Louise) that the reinsurance of the capacity of the princes at the 12th century striped chart.

Growth and falls of the seigniory of Bellême

The dukes of Normandy tried to dominate this territory but the lords of Bellême endeavoured to develop a certain independence. So much so that they became with 11th and 12th century a permanent threat for the peace of the south of the Normandy. Whereas the dukes always tried to limit the power of their vassal in their trustful of the dispersed fields, the territory of the Famille of Bellême was “ the only seigniory of only one holding which existed in Normandy ”. About 1050, Guillaume the Bastard one, the future William the Conqueror, managed to subject the area and forced his chief Guillaume II Talvas to give in marriage his daughter, single heiress, with faithful of the duke of Normandy. But the son resulting from this union, Robert II of Bellême, reconstituted the family field. At the beginning of the 12th century, the seigniory was with its apogee. Approximately 40 castles defended it.

However it is at this period that the king of England and duke of Normandy Henri Ier Beauclerc succeeds in cutting down this seigniory definitively. In 1112, it stopped Robert II of Bellême, took again Alençon, then the following year, it carried out a coalition which seized Bellême and the other place-strong ones of the seigniory. In 1119, on the request of Foulques V, Henri Ier Beauclerc accepted in grace Guillaume III Talvas, the son of Robert de Bellême, and returned all the grounds to him which his/her father had had in Normandy. Except Bellême.

List lords of Bellême

• Yves Ier de Bellême (Yves de Creil?) (??? - about 1005)
• Guillaume Ier (towards 1005-towards 1031/1035)
• Robert Ier de Bellême (about 1031-1035)
• Guillaume II Talvas (1035-towards 1047), died towards 1053
• Yves, bishop of Sées (about 1047-1070)
• Mabile Talvas (1070-1077)
• Robert II of Bellême (1077-1112), died towards 1130

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