Fulk’s Chain of Border Fortresses
Fulk Rechin, during the decade of disorder following the death of Odo I. and the re-marriage of Odo’s widow, completed a chain of border fortresses stretching from Angers in a wid…
The Execution of Countess Elizabeth (c. 1000)
The early eleventh century was an age of castle-building and apocalyptic fear, and the superstitious terrors that paralyzed gentler souls only inflamed Fulk’s restless and violent…
Fulk’s First Pilgrimage to Jerusalem
After the dread year passed and the world survived, the blood Fulk had shed at Conquereux and elsewhere, together with the ashes of his wife, began to weigh heavily on the Black C…
The Founding of Beaulieu Abbey
On his return Fulk’s first care was to build an abbey to house his relic. Across the Indre from the great keep of Loches, then rising in picturesque contrast to a church that Geof…
The Consecration Dispute and the Storm of 1012
By the time the abbey stood ready for consecration the son of Fulk and Hildegard, the future conqueror of Tours, was nearly three years old, having been nursed by a blacksmith’s w…
The Assassination of Hugh of Beauvais
Having successfully defied the Church, Fulk next ventured to defy king and count of Blois together.…
Alliance with Maine and the Choice of Lisoy
During Fulk’s absence the adherents of the count of Blois, headed by Landry of Châteaudun, plotted to expel the Angevins from Touraine, and despite a vigorous resistance by Fulk’s…
The Battle of Pontlevoy (1016)
The crisis came in the summer of 1016, when Odo of Blois gathered all his forces for an attack upon Montrichard.…
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