The early part of the eleventh century was an age of castle-building; Fulk, however, had begun his line of fortifications before the century dawned, in those gloomy years of interdict when the royal power was at its lowest ebb, when the people, cut off from the helps and comforts of religion, lay in hopeless anarchy and misery, and half in terror, half in longing, men whispered to each other that the end of the world was near. The superstitious terrors which paralyzed gentler souls only goaded Fulk into more restless activity and inflamed his fierce temper almost to madness. He had married the heiress of Vendôme, the daughter of Count Burchard;[314] but this union came to a terrible end while its only child was still in her cradle. In the very dawn of the dreaded year 1000 Countess Elizabeth expiated her real or supposed sins as a wife by death at the stake; and a conflagration which destroyed a large part of the city of Angers immediately after her execution may well have caused the horror-stricken subjects of her husband to deem that judgement was indeed at their gates.[315] [314] They were already married in 990; see a charter in Mabillon, _Ann. Bened._, vol. iv. p. 59. [315] This, or something like it, must be the meaning of the not very intelligible accounts given in the Angevin chronicles of the death of Elizabeth and the fire which followed it. “Incensa est urbs Andegavensis post incensionem Comitissæ Elizabeth.” Chron. S. Michael. in Peric. Maris, a. 1000 (_Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. x. p. 175). “Prima incensio urbis Andegavæ, quæ evenit paucis diebus post combustionem comitissæ Helisabeth.” Chron. S. Albin., a. 1000 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 22). “Urbs Andecava incensa est post combustionem comitissæ Elisabeth.” Breve Chron. S. Flor. Salm. a. 999 (_ib._ p. 187). “Fulco ... cum Elysabeth conjugem suam Andegavis, post immane præcipitium salvatam, occidisset, ipsamque urbem paucis defendentibus flammarum incendiis concremâsset.” _Hist. S. Flor. Salm._ (_ibid._), p. 273. Cf. _ib._ p. 260.