England under the Angevin Kings, Volumes I and II

CHAPTER II. (Part 1 of 3)

The Angevin cradle was Anjou, a small central Gaul county straddling the lower Loire and its tributary the Mayenne: a wedge hemmed in by the Loire to the south and the Loir, Sarthe, and Mayenne to the north and west, with southern alluvial flood-fen and northern wooded uplands. Its earliest known inhabitants, the Gallic Andes, gave it their name. Above the Loire-Mayenne confluence, a towering black slate rock formed a natural fortress; the Romans built Juliomagus on its summit with radiating roads, and a 4th-century missionary founded a church that grew into S. Maurice’s Cathedral. Frankish counts replaced Roman prefects, and the name faded through Andecavis to Angers.

The county’s importance grew with the 843 Treaty of Verdun, which split the Carolingian Empire among Louis the German (East Francia), Charles the Bald (West Francia), and Lothar (the Middle Kingdom). The division shaped modern France and Germany, but the Middle Kingdom collapsed: Aquitaine remained semi-independent, clinging to Roman culture, while Brittany preserved its Celtic language, laws, and dynasty, nominally loyal to West Francia and quick to ally with Viking raiders.

The Vikings both unified and divided West Francia: raids spurred new national life, but unlike English consolidation under West-Saxon kings, Frankish unity shattered, the Laon king not the natural defense leader, so the brunt fell on Seine and Loire estuaries. Angers, between the rivers, was the true key to the Loire valley and Neustrian stronghold. In 843, Breton-born Angevin march count Lambert was denied Nantes, defected to the Breton king, called in a Viking fleet, and together they sacked Nantes—the first Viking Loire entry. Nearly a decade later Vikings raided Paris and took Bordeaux; an 851 West-Saxon victory at Aclea threw them back to Gaul, and Charles the Bald ceded Nantes and land west of the Mayenne to the Bretons, but the next year Vikings sailed up the Loire and sacked S. Martin’s abbey at Tours. A brief alliance offer from Æthelwulf collapsed after a Wessex political revolution. Robert the Brave, count of the Angevin march, allied with Breton rebels and Pepin of Aquitaine against Charles, so Charles invested him with a vast duchy between Seine and Loire to keep out Bretons and Vikings. Robert fought successfully until his ambush death at Brissarthe in 866. His cousin Hugh of Burgundy inherited but was so inept Vikings sailed unopposed up the Loire and Mayenne, found Angers deserted, and settled there as a raiding base. Charles the Bald and Breton king Solomon besieged: the Bretons dug a trench to strand Viking ships, the invaders paid heavily to evacuate, and Angers was reclaimed in 873.

The crisis came when Charles the Fat reunited the realm; the true savior of West Francia was Robert’s son Odo of Paris, who held off the Viking siege of Paris through the winter of 885. When Charles the Fat was deposed, Odo was made king, though a reaction restored the Carolingian Charles the Simple in 898; the Dukes of France, centered on Paris, steadily supplanted the old monarchy. Angers became a secondary outpost, and the dukes parcelled out fiefs: Scandinavian settlers became lieutenants, others were rewarded for fighting Vikings. Robert’s old Breton alliance may have inspired the legend of Tortulf, a Mayenne forester, half hunter half bandit, who fought Vikings, was made forester of the “Nid-de-Merle” (Blackbird’s Nest), and won the Duke of France’s alliance through daring raids. His son Ingelger married Ælendis, niece of the Tours archbishop, gaining Amboise as dowry. Ingelger’s son Fulk (the Red) entered Odo of Paris’s service, stayed loyal to the ducal house, was made viscount of Anjou, then invested as Count of the Angevin March.

Anjou was the Duchy of France’s smallest under-fief, smaller than Blois-Chartres-Tours or Maine, but its compact geography and clear political choice set it apart. Maine was an independent borderland claimed by both France and Normandy; Blois grew too sprawling, eastern expansion into Champagne costing it Touraine. Wedged between Loire, Mayenne, Brittany, and Aquitaine, Anjou had two options: be swallowed or swallow in self-defense. The Angevin counts chose the latter—thorough, daring, politically savvy, fiercely proud of “black Angers.” Fulk the Red married Roscilla of Loches, gaining the Indre valley town. When Charles the Simple died in 912, Charles and Duke Hugh granted Normandy to Hrolf the Ganger at S.-Clair-sur-Epte, on nominal homage and conversion terms that did little to stop raids. Hrolf’s son William Longsword tried to civilize his people but was dismissed as a pirate. When Charles was killed and Rudolf of Burgundy took the throne, Vikings raided Fleury Abbey; Fulk’s eldest son Ingelger died fighting them, leaving two younger sons: Guy, bishop of Soissons (a major political figure who consecrated a 6-year-old as archbishop of Reims and once offered himself as a Norman hostage for Louis IV’s release), and Fulk the Good, who received the marchland when Fulk the Red died in 941 or 942.