Fulk Nerra, the Neo-Roman Consul 987-1040: A Political Biography of the Angevin Count

486 Pages·1993·2.74 MB·English

by  Bernard S. Bachrach

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title : Fulk Nerra, the Neo-Roman Consul, 987-1040 : A Political
Biography of the Angevin Count
author : Bachrach, Bernard S.
publisher : University of California Press
isbn10 | asin : 0520079965
print isbn13 : 9780520079960
ebook isbn13 : 9780585081281
language : English
subject Fulk--III Nerra,--Count of Anjou,--ca. 970-1040, France--
Civilization--Roman influences, France--Kings and rulers--
Biography, Anjou (France)--Biography, Anjou, House of.
publication date : 1993
lcc : DC611.A606B23 1993eb
ddc : 944/.021/092
subject : Fulk--III Nerra,--Count of Anjou,--ca. 970-1040, France--
Civilization--Roman influences, France--Kings and rulers--
Biography, Anjou (France)--Biography, Anjou, House of.
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Fulk Nerra, the Neo-Roman Consul, 9871040
A Political Biography of the Angevin Count
Bernard S. Bachrach
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley / Los Angeles / London

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University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press
London, England
Copyright © 1993 by The Regents of the University of California
Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bachrach, Bernard S., 1939
Fulk Nerra, the neo-Roman consul, 9871040: a political
biography of the Angevin count / Bernard S. Bachrach.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-520-07996-5
1. Fulk III Nerra, Count of Anjou, ca. 9701040. 2. Anjou
(France)History. 3. FranceCivilizationRoman influences.
4. FranceKings and rulersBiography. 5. Anjou, House of.
I. Title.
DC611.A606B23 1993
944'.021'092dc20 9313891
[B] CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.481984

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For Jacques Boussard in memoriam
and for Olivier Guillot

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Contents
Preface ix
1 1
Family Background and Childhood
2 27
The Struggle for Survival: 987996
3 62
The First Capetian-Blésois Axis
4 88
Fulk Nerra's Rapprochement with King Robert II
5 118
The Second Capetian-Blésois Axis
6 142
Struggle for Mastery in the West: Part 1
7 162
Struggle for Mastery in the West: Part 2
8 179
Master in the West
9 207
The Angevin-Capetian Alliance

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10 227
The Last Years
11 250
Summing Up
Genealogies 261
Fulk Nerra: Brief Chronology Of Major Events 277
Notes 281
Bibliography 355
Personal Name Index 375
Place Name Index 381
Subject Index 387

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Preface
When the political unity of Francia Occidentalis finally succumbed to the dual burdens of endemic civil war and
foreign invasions during the late ninth century, the realm gradually fragmented into a congeries of smaller states. 1
Many of these polities were based on the old Roman civitates, that is, the fundamental local political structures that first
had coalesced into a Romano-German regnum ruled by the Merovingian dynasty and later into the Carolingian state
west of the Rhine.2 The new small states that developed at the dissolution of the Carolingian empire exhibited a
political dynamic in which a plethora of dynasties, many with family connections to the house of Charlemagne, vied to
absorb their neighbors' lands and rights in an ongoing effort to aggrandize their territorial holdings and assure the
legitimacy of their positions for themselves and their descendants.3
During the course of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries the major powers in the west of the French kingdomand
the position of the Capetian kings was not negligible4were the counts of Rouen who became dukes of Normandy,5 the
counts of Poitou who became dukes of Aquitaine,6 the counts of BloisChartres whose interests were diverted east into
Champagne,7 and the counts of Anjou, whose capital was at Angers, the erstwhile fortified Roman urbs of Juliomagus
at the confluence of the Mayenne and Loire rivers about a hundred kilometers from the Atlantic coast at Nantes.8 In an
ongoing struggle for land and power the dynasty of Angevin counts gradually emerged as the leading power. Indeed,
when Count Henry of Anjou conquered England in

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1154, he created an empire stretching from the Pyrenees in the south to Scotland in the north; this empire included two
kingdoms, the regnum Aquitanorum and the regnum Anglorum. 9 The key figure in this Angevin success story,
recognized both by his contemporaries during the Middle Ages and by modern scholars, was Fulk Nerra, count of the
Angevins, 9871040 (see genealogy 1).10
The purpose of this book is to explain how Fulk Nerra, after coming to power as a teenager, rose to be master in the
west and in the process built the state upon which his descendants would create the Angevin empire.11 My thesis is that
Fulk built the Angevin state in a physical sense, on the ground, by gradually fortifying his lines of communication
between important population centers eastward from his capital at Angers to Amboise, Loches, and Vendôme. This
process resulted both in fortified frontiers, which where possible followed natural barriers such as le Loir river, and a
defense in depth which protected communication and transportation along the old Roman roads and navigable
waterways. These efforts not only made the Angevin state militarily defensible but enabled Fulk to isolate and take
control of lands and fortifications held by his adversaries within the frontiers.12 Fulk's strategy and indeed also his
tactics were informed by Roman military science, most likely Vegetian in inspiration, which he modified according to
his needs.13 In addition, Fulk employed a highly eclectic collection of technique, images, and ideas, which in a broad
sense can be traced to the Roman past and which were of the utmost importance in legitimizing his exercise of political
power within the Angevin state.14
This political biography is not an effort to revivify the argument over "the hero in history." Indeed, Fulk cannot be
credited with having begun his state building de novo. Rather, prior to his accession in 987, his ancestors had come to
control the greater part of the Angevin civitas and much of value beyond its frontiers.15 Both Geoffrey Greymantle (d.
987) and Fulk the Good (d. 960), Fulk's father and grandfather, respectively, played a substantial role in developing the
economic, political, and human resources that made possible his success.16 Of equal importance, however, was the
Angevin family network, an extensive system of marriage alliances built up over several generations, the component
parts of which in large part saw their interests linked to the success of the Angevin count.17
That Fulk's state-building techniques were overwhelmingly successful and unique among the great magnates of Francia
Occidentalis, especially in contrast to his major adversaries, Odo II of Blois-Champagne

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