England under the Angevin Kings, Volumes I and IINorgate, Kate
History
England under the Angevin Kings, Volumes I and II
Norgate, Kate
Anjou, House of; England -- Civilization -- 1066-1485; Great Britain -- History -- Angevin period, 1154-1216
M. Mabille’s last objection is that the real Fulk Rechin would have
known better than to say that Geoffrey pursued William as far as
Mirebeau, a place which had no existence till the castle was built by
Fulk Nerra in 1000. Why should he not have meant simply “the place
where Mirebeau now stands”? And even if he did think the name existed
in Greygown’s day, what does that prove against his identity? Why
should not Count Fulk make slips as well as other people?
The date of the war is matter of guess-work. The S. Maxentian
chronicler’s “eo tempore” comes between 989 and 996, _i.e._ after
Geoffrey’s death. One can only conjecture that it should have come just
at the close of his life.
NOTE E.
THE GRANT OF MAINE TO GEOFFREY GREYGOWN.
That a grant of the county of Maine was made by Hugh Capet to a count
of Anjou is pretty clear from the later history; that the grant was
made to Geoffrey Greygown is not so certain. The story comes only from
the Angevin historians; and they seem to have systematically carried
back to the time of Greygown all the claims afterwards put forth by
the counts of Anjou to what did not belong to them. They evidently
knew nothing of his real history, so they used him as a convenient lay
figure on which to hang all pretensions that wanted a foundation and
all stories that wanted a hero, in total defiance of facts and dates.
They have transferred to him one exploit whose hero, if he was an
Angevin count at all, could only have been Fulk Nerra--the capture of
Melun in 999. An examination of this story will be more in place when
we come to the next count; but it rouses a suspicion that after all
Geoffrey may have had no more to do with Maine than with Melun.--The
story of the grant of Maine in the _Gesta Consulum_ (Marchegay,
_Comtes_, pp. 77, 78) stands thus: David, count of Maine, and Geoffrey,
count of Corbon, refuse homage to king Robert. The king summons his
barons to help him, among them the count of Anjou. The loyal Geoffrey
takes his rebel namesake’s castle of Mortagne and compels him to submit
to the king; David still holds out, whereupon Robert makes a formal
grant of “him and his Cenomannia” to Greygown and his heirs for ever.
On this M. l’abbé Voisin (_Les Cénomans anciens et modernes_, p. 337)
remarks: “Cette chronique renferme avec un fonds de vérité des détails
évidemment érronés; le Geoffroy d’Anjou, dont il est ici question,
n’est pas suffisamment connu. C’est à lui que Guillaume de Normandie
fait rendre hommage par son fils Robert; c’est lui, sans doute, qui,
suivant les historiens de Mayenne, fut seigneur de cette ville et
commanda quelque temps dans le Maine et l’Anjou, sous Louis d’Outremer;
au milieu d’une assemblée des comtes et des barons de son parti, Robert
l’aurait investi de ce qu’il possédait alors dans ces deux provinces.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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