Fulk Nerra

“ Elizabeth having died in 1000, Fulk married Hildegarde of Lorraine, by whom he had a son, Geoffrey Martel (q.v.) , and a daughter Ermengarde, who married Geoffrey, count of Gâtinais, and was the mother of Geoffrey “le Barbu” (the Bearded) and of Fulk “le Réchin” (see Anjou) .
See Louis Halphen, Le Comté d’Anjou au XI e siècle (Paris, 1906) . The biography of Fulk Nerra by Alexandre de Salies, Histoire de Foulques Nerra (Angers, 1874) is confused and uncritical. ”

“ She might be a daughter of Fulk the Good by his second marriage with the widow of Alan Barbetorte.
Note C.
THE PILGRIMAGES OF FULK NERRA.
Of all the writers, ancient and modern, who have treated of Fulk Nerra, scarcely any two are wholly agreed as to the number and dates of his journeys to Holy Land. Some make out four journeys; some three; one, his own grandson, makes only two (Fulk Rechin, Marchegay, Comtes, p. 377) . ”

“ If, instead of the metropolitan church of Normandy, a lay baron had owned the soil of Andely, we may be sure that long ago that lofty brow would have received its fitting crown; if the power of Fulk the Builder had reached to the banks of the Seine, we may doubt whether the anathemas of the Norman primate would not have availed as little to wrest such a spot from his grasp as those of the archbishop of Tours had availed to wrest from him the site of Montrichard. But a greater castle-builder than Fulk Nerra himself was the architect of Château-Gaillard. ”

“ Later ages, however, connected it with a dim tradition, which still lingered in the district, of the wonderful night-ride across Loire and Vienne whereby Fulk Nerra had won Saumur, and in the belief of the peasantry the Pont de l’Annonainii.201 became a “devil’s bridge,” built in a single night by the Black Count’s familiar demon [962] —a demon who is but a popular personification of that spirit of dauntless enterprise and ceaseless activity which, alike in their material and in their political workmanship, was the secret of Henry’s success no less than of Fulk’s. ”

“ At any rate they were looked upon as sinners, and by no one more than the bridegroom’s father. The whole scheme of Geoffrey’s meddlings in Aquitaine was repugnant to Fulk Nerra’s policy; he looked to his son to complete his own labours in Touraine and Maine, and it was no good omen for the fulfilment of his hopes when Geoffrey thus turned his back upon his appointed work for the love of Countess Agnes or of her late husband’s possessions. The capture of William the Fat had been the signal for the first outbreak of a “more than civil war” between father and son ”

“ The new count of Anjou began his reign in circumstances very unlike those of his father half a century before. Not only had Fulk wholly changed the political position of Anjou, but Geoffrey’s own position as an individual was totally different. He was no untried boy, left to fight his own way with no weapons save the endowments which nature had given him; he was a full-grown man, trained in the school of Fulk Nerra, and already experienced in politics and war. In his own day Geoffrey Martel was looked up to with as much respect as his father, and with even more dread. ”

“ A dense woodland of oaks and larches and firs, stretching north-eastward almost to the valley of the Indre, and crowded with game of every kind, formed probably no small part of the attractions which were to make Chinon the favourite retreat of Fulk Nerra’s greatest descendant. In those ruined halls, where a rich growth of moss and creepers has replaced the tapestried hangings, earlier and later memories—memories of the Black Count or of the Maid of Orleans—seem to an English visitor only to flit like shadows around the death-bed of Henry Fitz-Empress. ”

“ Fulk Nerra, or the Black, famous as a warrior, and on account of his pilgrim ages, by way of penance, to the Holy Sepulchre; Geoffrey Martel, a vigorous but unsuccessful opponent of William the Conqueror ”

“ He had little sympathyi.341 with the downright hand-to-hand fighting by which Fulk Nerra had won his spurs at Conquereux, or Fulk V. had repulsed Theobald and Stephen before Alençon, or Stephen had put his very captors to shame beneath the walls of Lincoln. Engineering was Geoffrey’s favourite science; in its developement he spared neither labour nor expense; and he now brought up against Cherbourg such a formidable array of machines that Richard thought it prudent to slip away by sea, intending to go to England and ask help of King Stephen. ”

“ The hardness of the rock out of which the fortifications were hewn was not the sole obstacle against which the royal builder had had to contend. Richard had no more thought than Fulk Nerra would have had of asking the primate’s leave before beginning to build upon his land; the work therefore was no sooner begun than Archbishop Walter lifted up his protest against it; obtaining no redress, he laid Normandy under interdict and carried his complaint in person to the Pope. [1897] Richard at once sent envoys to appeal against the interdict and make arrangements for the settlement of the dispute. ”

“ This view is distinctly supported by a charter in which Herispoë, in August 852, styles himself ruler of Britanny and up to the river Mayenne (Lobineau, Hist. Bretagne, vol. ii. col. 55) ; and it gives the most rational explanation of the Breton wars of Fulk the Good, Geoffrey Greygown and Fulk Nerra, which ended in Anjou’s recovery of the debateable ground. If it is correct, there is an end at once of the “bipartite county” and of Count Ingelger; “the other count” cannot have ruled west of the Mayenne, therefore he must have ruled east of it, and there is no room for any one else. ”

“ Fulk Nerra’s Poitevin castles, Maulévrier, Thouars, etc., must have been built on the ground won by Geoffrey.
The little marchland had thus openly begun her career of aggression on the west and on the south. It seems that a further promise of extension to the northward was now held by Hugh Capet before the eyes of his faithful Angevin friend. Geoffrey’s northern neighbour was as little disposed as the southern to welcome the coming king. The overlordship of Maine was claimed by the duke of the Normans on the strength of a grant made to Hrolf in 924 by King Rudolf ”

“ Le Mans surrendered to, 227; relations with Henry I., 11, 227, 233; marriages,255; death, 233 Elias of Anjou, son of Fulk V., i. 343 Elias of Saint-Saëns, i. 235 Elizabeth of Hainaut, first wife of Philip Augustus, ii. 217, 234, note 7{1115} Elizabeth of Vendôme, first wife of Fulk Nerra, i. 152 Ely, see of, founded, i. 68; quarrel with S. Edmund’s, ii. 482, 483. See Geoffrey, Nigel Emma, daughter of Geoffrey Plantagenet, ii. 181 Emperors, see Charles, Conrad, Frederic, Henry, Otto Engelram of Trie, i. 467 England under the Angevins, i. 1–3; relations with Rome, 15; with Normandy, 23, 24 ”

“ Merlin sat himself down on the stone seat outside the cell, with his staff across his knees. His cowl was drawn, and Fulk could not see his face, but merely a patch of blackness where the face should be.
The Franciscan took his beads and muttered three prayers, and Fulk watched him, wondering what Merlin’s business might be, and how far he was to be trusted.
“Has the blood grown restless in you, Fulk Ferrers?”
His voice was smooth and persuasive.
“No more than in a hawk on a perch.”
“The hawk would fly, eh! Young blood runs hot. I have many things to say to you, Fulk of the Forest.” ”

“ It was, however, too late to be of much avail; reason and health were both alike gone, and all that the victim gained by his nephew’s care was that, when he died shortly after, he at least died a free man. [550] His bequest availed as little to Geoffrey Martel; in 1103, Fulk openly announced his intention of disinheriting his valiant son in favour of Bertrada’s child. A brief struggle, in which Fulk was backed by the duke of Aquitaine and Geoffrey by Elias, ended in Fulk’s abdication. ”

“ When the county of Anjou was left to him by the death of his father Geoffrey Greygown, Fulk was a child scarce eight years old. [295] Surrounded by powerful foes whom Geoffrey’s aggressions had provoked rather than checked—without an ally or protector unless it were the new king—Fulk began life with everything against him. Yet before he has reached the years of manhood the young count meets us at every turn, and always in triumph. Throughout the fifty-three years of his reign Fulk is one of the most conspicuous and brilliant figures in French history. ”

“ A bird twittered in the furze, and Merlin threw up his arms of a sudden, and cried in a loud voice: “Peace—peace! All honour to St. Francis, and let all men love one another.”
Fulk looked at him as at one gone mad. Merlin waxed explanatory.
“Sir, at times the spirit stirs in me so strongly that I have to leap and cry out. And assuredly it is a marvellous thing that such a bachelor as Fulk Ferrers should never have ridden thirty miles and crossed London Bridge! Yet you are not altogether the loser, for in a city lurks much wickedness.” ”

“ The blow overthrew the power of Rennes; the new duke Geoffrey, the son of Conan and Hermengard, was far indeed from being a match for his young uncle. In the flush of victory Fulk marched into Nantes; the citizens received him with open arms; the dismayed garrison speedily surrendered, and swore fealty to the conqueror; the titular bishop, Judicaël, a young son of Count Hoel, was set up as count under the guardianship of Aimeric of Thouars, a kinsman of the Angevin house, who ruled solely in Fulk’s interest ”

“ One was a swineherd, the other a tiler, and being two to one, and Fulk no labourer in looks and dress, they showed a bullying valour, and fell upon him together. All Fulk’s fury took its outlet. He left both of them flat on the floor, helped himself to the wine and food, and was cheered by finding some rusty harness and a sword in an oak chest in the cellar. The horse in the stable would have carried the two boors, so Fulk had no qualms over saving him from such a fate. He saddled and bridled the beast, and rode on till the darkness made him call a halt. ”

“ Listen to me, son Fulk. A priest comes by many truths, and by strange stories, and sometimes it is difficult for a man to believe his own ears and eyes.”
He bent over his staff and stared into Fulk’s face, his cowl slipping back a little, so that a gaunt chin poked out and Fulk saw the gleam of his eyes.
“Listen to strange tidings.”
Merlin’s voice fell to a whisper; and Fulk, looking into the dim face, felt as though some sly and persuasive hand were touching him. Isoult’s enigmatic words were in his ears, and his mistrust bristled. ”

“ Fulk saw a solitary figure outlined against the fire, thrusting a pole under the burning brushwood, and looking, with the jagged comb of its hood, like a sinister black devil.
Something moved in the mouth of the quarry, a patch of greyness that disassociated itself from the vague gloom of the brambles and furze. Fulk’s chin went up, and his eyes were on the alert. The figure shaped itself into that of a grey friar, and Fulk guessed it to be Father Merlin. ”

“ Fulk, however, had begun his line of fortifications before the century dawned, in those gloomy years of interdict when the royal power was at its lowest ebb, when the people, cut off from the helps and comforts of religion, lay in hopeless anarchy and misery, and half in terror, half in longing, men whispered to each other that the end of the world was near. The superstitious terrors which paralyzed gentler souls only goaded Fulk into more restless activity and inflamed his fierce temper almost to madness. He had married the heiress of Vendôme, the daughter of Count Burchard ”

“ They fastened the shutters of all the lower windows, and carried a store of food and water up into the solar, Fulk foreseeing that he might have to make his last stand there if Merlin’s men broke in. The gentry across the water kept close in the thickets. Fulk saw the smoke of a fire rising and guessed that they would lie hidden till night came.
About sunset they heard the sound of men felling timber in the wood nearest the mere. Fulk and Isoult were supping at the daïs table, and they looked at each other meaningly. ”

“ He had no great love for the strolling friars, holding them to be deer stealers when the chance served, and self-seeking meddlers who were breeding an insolent pride in the hearts of the lewd commons. For Fulk had an eagle scorn for the villein folk and the lower craftsmen of the town. Such creatures were to be kept under, and not puffed into a vain conceit of themselves by men who had left the dunghill to put on a friar’s frock.
Fulk took a good look at the Franciscan, and from under his hood Merlin’s eyes were watching the legs of the roan horse. ”

“ Fulk’s wrath seems to have been directed against the monks rather than against his son; but the incident serves as an illustration of the tendency to opposition that173 was springing up in Geoffrey’s mind. The quiet, waiting policy of Fulk’s latter years was evidently irksome to the young man’s impatient spirit, and he chose to strike out a path for himself in a direction which, it is not surprising to learn, did not please the old count. The only one of his neighbours with whom Fulk seems to have been always on peaceable terms was the count of Poitou. ”

“ It is not hard to see why the rival overlord of Nantes should be ready to make war, on any pretext, upon the count of Anjou; but, making due allowance for Fulk’s possible difficulties—Odo’s last attack occurred in this year—still it is very hard to see why Fulk, “the ingenious Fulk,” as the writer of the Gesta Amb. Domin. calls him (Marchegay, Comtes, p. 165) , could find no better way of raising the siege of a petty border-fortress than by making restitution to Herbert at the bidding of Alan, unless he felt so sure of his hold over Herbert as not to think the hostages worth keeping. ”