Earl Robert of Gloucester as scholar and patron
The king’s son Earl Robert of Gloucester was renowned as a scholar no less than as a warrior and statesman.…
The secular clergy and historical writing
The secular clergy had no mind to be outstripped by the regulars in literary activity. Bishop Alexander of Lincoln, a nephew of the justiciar, urged his archdeacon Henry of Huntin…
Natural science and Philip de Thaun’s Bestiary
Natural science had its followers beyond the king himself. Philip de Thaun, an Anglo-Norman poet, composed a Bestiary which found a patroness in Henry’s second queen, Adeliza of L…
Adelard of Bath and his eastern travels
Adelard of Bath, a scholar of Old English race, took his researches into a far wider field.…
Adelard’s plea for free inquiry into natural science
Adelard next opened a school, apparently in Normandy, to diffuse the scientific lore he had acquired in the East.…
The good peace of Henry’s reign
What gave scope for all this social, moral, and intellectual development was, in the Peterborough Chronicler’s phrase, the “good peace” that Henry, like his father, made in the la…
Foundations of administrative order after Tinchebray
The foundations of the political and administrative system by which this peace was maintained were laid in the three years after the battle of Tinchebray—the brightest period of H…
Peace in England, Wales, and Scotland under Henry
In England, from the day Henry drove out Robert of Bellême in 1103 to his own death in 1135, the peace was never broken save by occasional disturbances on the Welsh border.…
New complications in Normandy and the rise of Anjou
In Normandy the year 1110 opened a new phase of politics: a train of complications in which England seemed at first less directly concerned than in Henry’s earlier struggles with…
KAPITEL II.
Chapter II surveys the beginnings of Anjou during the years 843–987, framing the original county, its chief city of Angers, and the broader Karolingian crisis provoked by Northmen raids.…
Geography of the Original County of Anjou
The original county of Anjou was a small territory in central Gaul focused on the lower Loire and its affluent the Mayenne.…
The City of Angers: From Juliomagus to Andegavis
A few miles above the confluence of the Loire and Mayenne, a lofty mass of black slate rock furnished a natural fortress commanding the valleys of central, northern, and southern…
The Treaty of Verdun and the Division of the Karolingian Realms
City and county gained new significance through the 843 Treaty of Verdun, which divided the Karolingian realms among Louis the Gentle’s three sons.…
Aquitania and Britanny: Threats to West-Frankland
The territory actually subject to Charles the Bald fell far short of the treaty’s limits. Aquitania, stretching from the southern Loire to the Pyrenees and Mediterranean, remained…
The Northmen’s Strategy and the Strategic Importance of Anjou
The Northmen’s work in West-Frankland was both unifying and divisive, producing a new national life through the need to organize defense.…
Lambert’s Treason and the First Northmen Attack on Nantes
In the early days of Charles the Bald’s reign, Lambert, a Breton-born count of the Angevin march, demanded from the king the neighboring and recently vacated county of Nantes.…
Renewed Raids and Charles the Bald’s Concessions to Britanny
Nearly ten years passed before the Northmen struck central Gaul again, turning next to the Seine valley and Paris in 845, and raiding Aquitania until they conquered Bordeaux in 84…
Robert the Brave and the Defense of the Angevin March
In the breathing-space that followed, Charles received a personal visit from Æthelwulf proposing a mutual alliance against the Northmen, a scheme shattered by a political revoluti…
The Pirate Occupation and Recovery of Angers
Robert the Brave fulfilled his trust gallantly until he fell in a Scandinavian ambush at Brissarthe in 866.…
Odo of Paris and the Deliverance from the Northmen
The long keels soon returned, and amid the gathering troubles of the Karolingian house cries for deliverance from the fury of the Northmen rose from the banks of the Seine and eve…
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