a debt of gratitude to his overlord for good help given at Val-es-
dunes, and excuses were never lacking for a quarrel between Anjou
and Normandy. Both powers asserted rights over the intermediate
land of Maine. In 1048 we find William giving help to Henry in a
war with Anjou, and we hear wonderful but vague tales of his
exploits. The really instructive part of the story deals with two
border fortresses on the march of Normandy and Maine. Alencon lay
on the Norman side of the Sarthe; but it was disloyal to Normandy.
Brionne was still holding out for Guy of Burgundy. The town was a
lordship of the house of Belleme, a house renowned for power and
wickedness, and which, as holding great possessions alike of
Normandy and of France, ranked rather with princes than with
ordinary nobles. The story went that William Talvas, lord of
Belleme, one of the fiercest of his race, had cursed William in his
cradle, as one by whom he and his should be brought to shame. Such
a tale set forth the noblest side of William's character, as the
man who did something to put down such enemies of mankind as he who
cursed him. The possessions of William Talvas passed through his
daughter Mabel to Roger of Montgomery, a man who plays a great part
in William's history; but it is the disloyalty of the burghers, not
of their lord, of which we hear just now. They willingly admitted
an Angevin garrison. William in return laid siege to Domfront on
the Varenne, a strong castle which was then an outpost of Maine
against Normandy. A long skirmishing warfare, in which William won
for himself a name by deeds of personal prowess, went on during the
autumn and winter (1048-49). One tale specially illustrates more
than one point in the feelings of the time. The two princes,
William and Geoffrey, give a mutual challenge; each gives the other
notice of the garb and shield that he will wear that he may not be
mistaken. The spirit of knight-errantry was coming in, and we see