"La terre de Gouy appartient aux Hospitaliers de St Jean de Jerusalem."
The above (from Histoire de l'Ordre souverain de Malte - Borricand) states
that the lands of Gouy were given (for a time) to the Hospital of of Saint
John of Jersusalem at the very end of 11th century. The sponsors of this
hospice were the merchants of Amafi, a city state in Italy. A connection
here can be assumed between the
Frankish aristocrats who owned the land (Counts of Vexin and their
descendants) and Italian merchants.
Slightly later in the 1100s the true order of the Knights Templar was
created. Saint Bernard is thought to have had a role in the creation of this
knightly order. These knights were financiers. They were the bankers of
their day. Saint Bernard also began the Cistercian order. They likewise
were connected to money matters.
The Carpentiers seem to have been the descendants of the Counts of Vexin.
They descended from Roger the Lord of Gouy. These earliest Carpentiers were
profoundly connected to the Cistercians. The first Carpentier
of note in England was the financier Ellis le Charpenter who came from
England and controlled a goodly portion of the wine trade and credit loans
in Bordeaux. Many of his fellow merchant-financiers were Italian.
A popular nickname of the descendants of the Counts of Vexin was 'la riche'
or moneybags. The first abbot of the Abbey of Vauchelles, where the
Carpentiers came from, was an Englishman. Ellis of Bordeaux who arrived in
Bordeaux about 1255 had to already have been a rich man when he arrived. In
other words there was probably already big money in the family long before
him. Roger de Gouy and his father Theobald de Gouy
also had connections to England and specifically Norfolk where
Carpentier-Charpenter merchants are first recorded in the very early 1200s.
While the evidence is sketchy, the theme of finance and trade seems to go
all the way back. The lesser descendants of the Counts of Vexin used their
money to establish a trade and finance network from
the Arras area to England and Bordeaux, with connections to Italy. To have
turned over a goodly portion of your land to a charity speaks of great
wealth by itself. Perhaps land was no longer was the chief origin of their
wealth. In the parlance of Wall Street they 'diversified'.
Bruce Carpenter