After a series of such formidable leaders as Geoffrey Greymantle, Fulk Nerra and Geoffrey Martel, it is perhaps not surprising that there must at some point come an ineffective Angevin count. Geoffrey Martel failed in one of the primary responsibilities of a ruler and left no children, though his sister Ermengarde, who was married to Geoffrey Count of Gâtinais, had two sons later to be known as Geoffrey the Bearded and Fulk Réchin. Unfortunately, with the nephews of Geoffrey Martel came not one, but two bad leaders. The Gesta states it most succinctly:
As far as the number and nature of evils which occurred in the county while Geoffrey the Bearded and Fulk Réchin possessed the honour of Martel are concerned, their disclosure is ordered by true history but forbidden by the horror and scale of the destruction. Indeed, I do not know whether it is better for those malefactors if details of their evil accomplishments are omitted or rather whether it does them a disservice to suppress examples of their wickedness.22
Geoffrey Martel seems to have divided his domains between his nephews, and the Gesta states that Martel gave Geoffrey the Bearded Anjou and the Saintonge, and Fulk Réchin received Touraine and Chateau Landon. It seems incredible that Martel would divide Anjou and Touraine after going through so much to unite them, but William the Conqueror would do the same thing with England and Normandy. This may be the reason the Gesta reports the division as it does – it follows the logic that the patrimony goes to the elder heir and any land conquered goes to the younger, even if it is more extensive. Other sources, though, claim that Geoffrey the Bearded received Anjou, Saumur and Touraine, while Fulk Réchin received the Saintonge, which he held as a fief from his brother. We are in the unique position of having a statement from one of the protagonists, and although we may choose whether or not we wish to believe him, Fulk Réchin himself says that Geoffrey Martel knighted him in 1060 when he was seventeen and ‘committed to me the county of Saintonge, with its capital Saintes’23. Fulk says nothing else about the inheritance – which suggests strongly that everything else was in fact left to his brother – and goes on to say that war broke out between him and his brother, which ended with his brother’s imprisonment.
The early relations of the brothers are not clear. The Gesta reports that Fulk led a rebellion against his brother in 1066 and that the Duke of Aquitaine took advantage of this dissension to capture the Saintonge. However, the Gesta’s chronology seems faulty here, and in fact the Duke of Aquitaine attacked Fulk Réchin first in 1061. Although with Geoffrey’s help the Angevins defeated a Poitevin army in 1061, in 1062 Saintes fell to Aquitaine and Fulk Réchin lost his inheritance. Geoffrey the Bearded does not seem to have helped Fulk during the second attack, and an alternative view suggests that Fulk’s bitterness over this was what led him to revolt a few years later.24
Fulk Réchin’s name is sometimes translated as Fulk ‘the Quarreller’ (more on that below), but Geoffrey the Bearded in his short reign seems to fulfil this designation equally, as he had a genuine talent for alienating people. Geoffrey immediately fell foul of the clergy in Maine, to such an extent that the bishop of Le Mans complained to the pope, who threatened Geoffrey with excommunication. Geoffrey then compounded his religious difficulties in 1064 by demanding that the newly elected abbot of Marmoutier receive his investiture from the count’s hands. We have already seen that the conflict over lay investiture had rumbled through the 11th century and would soon rip Italy and the Empire apart, and fatally undermine the Emperor’s pretensions to universal authority. Although lay investiture was still practised, Marmoutier had been specifically exempted from comital control in a charter of Geoffrey Martel’s from 1044. In the midst of this dispute the canons of Le Mans had to elect a new bishop in 1065, and to Geoffrey’s fury chose the Norman Arnaud, a sign of waxing Norman power. Geoffrey tried to block the election and the Cenomannian clergy complained once again to the pope. The pope ordered Barthelmi, the Archbishop of Tours, to consecrate Arnaud immediately and Geoffrey furiously attacked the archbishop’s property. Barthelmi wrote to the pope again, calling Geoffrey ‘a new Nero’ who surpassed all his predecessors in impiety, and with papal support excommunicated Geoffrey and forbade all bishops, especially the bishop of Angers, to have any contact with him.25 This alone would be sufficient reason for a cleric, particularly one like Jean of Marmoutier whose monastery was involved, to condemn Geoffrey as a monster of wickedness.
It is instructive to look at how the Gesta presents Geoffrey the Bearded, since this is the primary source that modern historians use. The section on Geoffrey consists of five pages: the first paragraph is the one quoted above about his legendary wickedness, then four pages follow detailing how badly Geoffrey treated the monks of Marmoutier. The section finishes by stating that Geoffrey was deposed by Fulk Réchin and placed in miserable captivity for more than thirty years, concluding piously that this is what happens to people who oppose God’s will. A biography that highlights Geoffrey’s oppression of Marmoutier particularly and then describes him as the worst ruler since Nero leaves us with very little to go on. Geoffrey clearly did have problems with the clergy, but we are left knowing almost nothing about him other than that he was deposed by Fulk Réchin. He is an example of the historical figure characterized and caricatured by a single primary source, leaving later historians nothing to say except to repeat the slanders of contemporaries and leave it at that.
Geoffrey found himself in a desperate situation by the end of 1066 and Anjou might have been at the mercy of its hostile neighbours, especially the Normans, but we know William the Conqueror (as we can now call him) had taken a far larger prize than Anjou, one that would occupy him for the rest of his life. Closer to home there was someone willing to take advantage of Geoffrey’s troubles, and Fulk Réchin seized Saumur early in 1067. At this moment a papal legate arrived and convened a council of bishops, which upheld Geoffrey’s excommunication and seemed to give support to Fulk Réchin’s budding coup. Bolstered by this support, Fulk marched on Angers, and thanks to the support of Geoffrey’s leading vassals took Angers and imprisoned his brother. We need no further evidence of growing papal power in the 11th century than the pope’s apparent support for deposing the count of Anjou so soon after giving his blessing (and a papal banner) to the Normans who conquered England. However, Pope Alexander II realized the implications of excommunication becoming synonymous with deposition, and ordered Fulk to reinstate Geoffrey. Fulk agreed and restored Geoffrey as count due to this clerical intervention.26
Only a year later, in 1068, the brothers were again at war. Fulk seized Brissac and when Geoffrey besieged him, Fulk and his supporters routed Geoffrey’s army and captured the count again, this time imprisoning him in Chinon. Fulk then had to subdue numerous barons who either supported Geoffrey or had simply used the turmoil to seize towns or castles for themselves. Fulk showed himself a formidable soldier, besieging and taking all the rebel castles, but this disruption came at a price: Fulk had to cede the Gâtinais to King Philip I and pay homage to the Count of Blois for Touraine. Nevertheless, Fulk was now firmly in power and kept his brother imprisoned for nearly forty years.27
It should be noted that this is a very different story from the one given by William of Malmesbury, who states that Geoffrey the Bearded was a simple soul who liked to pray more than fight, although I think this suggests some confusion with the story of Fulk the Good. Malmesbury then notes that Geoffrey was held in contempt by the Angevins, ‘who knew not how to live in quiet’, though he then says that because of Geoffrey’s passivity the county was open to raids, and Fulk Réchin seized power to protect Anjou, which is a more flattering depiction of Fulk than we usually see.28
Despite the fact that Fulk began his reign with the bold action of deposing his brother, he was curiously ineffective thereafter. This was partially because the method by which he overthrew Geoffrey was to stir up the barons to rebellion, which unleashed such a spirit of independence in them that he spent the next decades trying to restore order. Worse, to ensure his position
he made concessions to his rivals that compromised the security of Anjou for decades and unravelled the work of generations. Fulk lost all influence in Maine, which soon fell to William the Conqueror; performed homage to the Count of Blois for Tours, undoing the work of Geoffrey Martel and Fulk Nerra; and ceded the entire Gâtinais to the French king in exchange for recognition of his title, undoing the work of Geoffrey Greymantle. Even worse, in 1106 his son Fulk V performed homage to the French king for Anjou itself, something which had always tacitly been accepted, but no Angevin count had done such a thing since before the reign of Fulk Nerra.29 This is certainly sufficient to explain the very low regard in which both contemporary and modern historians hold him, and worse, Fulk had the misfortune to follow the legendary energy of Fulk Nerra and the indisputable success of Geoffrey Martel, and compared to his own son who would become a king he had no accomplishments to recommend him.
He also suffered even more than Geoffrey Martel in being the rival of William the Conqueror. Fulk’s natural ally against William was the king of France, who was well aware of the threat the Normans posed, and the two did combine with the Breton lord Ralph of Gael to inflict a defeat on William. Ralph, who was also earl of Norfolk, had rebelled in England and been defeated, so he took refuge in the Breton city of Dol where he was joined by Angevin troops. William besieged them but was then driven away with great loss by King Philip I, in a successful use of the tactics that so often failed for Geoffrey Martel and Henry I of France, where one of the allies acted as the bait and the other arrived to catch William unawares. Despite the victory at Dol Philip I was no match for William, but he successfully lured William’s disaffected son Robert Curthose into an alliance against his father in 1078. Robert went so far as to take the field against his father at Gerborai in 1079 and killed his horse, and also wounded both his father and his brother William Rufus. William’s defeat prompted an invasion of England by King Malcolm of Scotland, a foreshadowing of events in Henry II’s reign when a son would take the field against his father with the assistance of a Scottish invasion.30
Whatever balanced approach we may try to take, Fulk’s contemporaries were much more scathing, with the Gesta pronouncing, ‘ill he began; worse he lived; worst of all he ended’31, and this has little to do with the territory he lost. Why did they think so badly of him? His ill beginning is plain enough, since the overthrow and imprisonment of his elder brother would have shocked some medieval sensibilities. Further, until Fulk Réchin himself, in medieval Europe there were only clerical chroniclers and we must consider what behaviour they would find most offensive. Fulk fell foul of what was becoming one of the signature policies of the 11th-century church, the regulation of marriage. Fulk’s first wife died, but after a second marriage to Ermengarde of Bourbon who gave him a son, Geoffrey Martel II, Fulk fell passionately in love with Bertrada of Montfort, a woman ‘no good man ever praised save for her beauty’, as the Gesta says archly, alluding to Sallust.32 Fulk discarded Ermengarde on the grounds of consanguinity to marry Bertrada, but if the authors of the Gesta condemned Fulk for his lechery, imagine the monks’ horror at Bertrada, who subsequently abandoned Fulk to marry the king of France!
The author of the Gesta is in no doubt about the kind of people these were: ‘The lecherous King Philip came to Tours and, having conversed with Fulk’s wife, decided to make her his queen. That evil woman abandoned the count the next night and followed the king … Thus the voluptuous king filled his house with marital crimes committed under the ban of excommunication and begat two sons by the woman …’33 William of Malmesbury adds the detail that Philip discarded his previous wife for being too fat and took up with Bertrada ‘in defiance of law and equity’.34 As always, such moral degradation implies that any sin is possible, and concerning the death of Fulk’s son Geoffrey Martel II at the siege of Candé, the Gesta repeats the rumour that Fulk and Bertrada engineered his death, though the author does qualify this by saying, ‘It seems unbelievable to me that the father of such a son should have consented to his death, both when he was an old man and when his son, had he been granted longevity, would have recovered whatever he had lost.’35 Geoffrey Martel II is unsurprisingly presented as the paragon of all virtues, as is the custom with heirs who seem promising but die before inheriting.
What is interesting is that Fulk Réchin’s second son, Fulk V, who would be known as Fulk the Young and later Fulk King of Jerusalem, is also presented as the epitome of goodness, despite being the offspring of Fulk Réchin and Bertrada. Medieval historians enjoyed the chance to present such contrasts, when the child of virtuous parents was wicked, or as in this case, vice versa.
Yet why should we believe what the chroniclers tell us when Fulk himself recounts some of his own story? Fulk Réchin is the first lay historian of the Middle Ages and produced a history of Anjou around the year 1100. We have relied so heavily on the Gesta that it comes as a revelation to have a primary source written by one of the protagonists in the story. Sadly only a fragment of Fulk’s history remains – some nine pages – which don’t address most of the questions we might wish to have answered. Still, it is instructive to see what Fulk wished to have preserved for posterity. The first sentence tells us everything we need to know:
I, Fulk Count of Anjou, who am the son of Geoffrey of Chateau Landon and Ermengarde, daughter of Fulk Nerra Count of Anjou; and nephew of Geoffrey Martel, who was son of the same Fulk, my grandfather, and brother of my mother, who held the county of Anjou 28 years, and Tours and Nantes and Maine, wished to commit to words how my ancestors acquired this honour and held it until my time, and how I too have held this same honour thanks to divine mercy.36
Fulk Réchin refers to ‘my grandfather Fulk’ (i.e. Fulk Nerra) four times in the first two pages of his history. He is clearly concerned with his legitimacy – or lack thereof – and this is the key to the existence of his history. He wished to set down an account of his ancestors and place himself in this line of succession to justify his usurpation of the county. He also confirms that Geoffrey Martel gave him the Saintonge, though we perhaps have less reason to trust him on this point than any other, and he listed the castles built by Fulk Nerra, proof that two generations later the significance of Fulk Nerra’s achievements was well known.
We are incredibly fortunate that Fulk chose to record his thoughts, even if only a fragment remains, since if we rely on the Gesta we are left with little more than we had about Geoffrey the Bearded. Worse, the version of the Gesta from 1109 had an explicitly didactic purpose in showing all the other counts to be wise and valiant, with Fulk Réchin alone being unworthy and decadent, and warning Fulk V to return to their values. Fulk’s failings are illustrated in the episodes narrated: we are told that he overthrew and imprisoned Geoffrey the Bearded, lost Saintes to the Poitevins, alienated property and castles to the French king and finally we are given the lurid details of his three wives.
What we certainly are not told is why he was called Fulk Réchin, a term that seems to have been used in his lifetime. This has variously been translated as the ‘Quarreller’, the ‘Growler’ or the ‘Sour Faced’, though in its possible derivation from rechigner (to balk) I would also suggest the rhyming ‘Fulk the Sulky’. Halphen reports the preposterous story that Fulk bent to kiss a saint’s relic and hit his face, which then gave him a rechigné, twisted expression, though only to discount the story as being based on a false charter.37 Disappointingly he then drops the question entirely. Other historians have speculated that Fulk had a stroke, which left him with a twisted expression. William of Malmesbury says explicitly that Réchin means ‘Growler’ because of Fulk’s perpetual growling at the ineptitude of his brother. Once again, we really don’t know, but at least Fulk has a more interesting name than Geoffrey the Bearded.
Or does he? Why was Geoffrey the Bearded so notable for his beard that he was named for it? Perhaps this is because Fulk Nerra and Geoffrey Martel had been clean-shaven like Romans. The drawings of Fulk Nerra’s tomb effigy show that he was be
ardless, and if Geoffrey Martel was too, then his successor’s beard may have been noteworthy. In the conscious association with all things Roman, the Angevins were likely clean-shaven and short-haired. The Romans throughout the Republic and early Empire never had beards, and it was Hadrian (who reigned from 118–138) who first had a beard. Why the change? Some contemporary sources claimed that he had a disfiguring facial scar that he wanted to cover. Whatever the reason, subsequent Emperors were bearded until the 4th century, when Constantine the Great reunited the Empire and self-consciously portrayed himself as the new Augustus, naturally returning to the traditional clean-shaven look as well. The oscillation between beards and no beards in medieval kingship can be quite telling: the politics of facial hair can speak volumes! We shouldn’t forget that any given individual may simply have liked having a beard or not, but the point is that his successors would then adopt the fashion and inevitably appearance became a political link with earlier rulers.
Fulk Réchin has another, and arguably more influential, claim to fame than writing a history of his family, and it is utterly extraordinary: the Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalis claimed that Fulk Réchin invented the long pointed shoes that are such an iconic accessory throughout the medieval period.38 Indeed, almost every image of the Middle Ages shows an example of this fashion, and it is part of what makes the period seem so alien to us, since they look undeniably silly. It would be unexpected enough for us to know the name of the person who invented the fashion, but for that person to be a particular Count of Anjou is astonishing.
Let us consider the story more carefully. These extravagant shoes were constantly censured by the clergy and secular rulers as a piece of useless vanity, which did nothing to hinder, and in fact increased, their popularity. It is therefore not unexpected that Orderic would locate their origin outside the Norman realm, and attributing them to the enemy Angevins would be sensible. After all, Orderic also claimed that the Angevins were ‘barbarians who desecrated churches, slew priests, looted indiscriminately, and ate like beasts’.39 Why wouldn’t they also have been responsible (paradoxically, if they were barbarians) for the quintessential piece of medieval vanity?
Angevin Dynasties of Europe 900-1500 Page 7