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
In the first place, this charter is suspicious as to date, for the
Chronn. S. Albin. (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 22), Vindoc. (_ib._ p.
164), S. Flor. Salm. (_ib._ p. 187), all date Bishop Rainald’s death
1005, and so, according to _Gallia Christiana_, vol. xiv. col. 558,
does the Obituary of S. Maurice; and the Chron. S. Serg. (Marchegay,
_Eglises_, p. 134) dates the consecration of his successor Hubert
1007. In the next place, what ground has M. de Salies for assuming
that “Fulco _vice_comes” is Fulk Nerra count of Anjou? The authors of
_Gallia Christiana_ quote this same charter, and their comment on it is
this: “Fulco sedenim comes” [it is _vice_comes in the charter] “quocum
Rainaldus Hierosolymitanum iter aggressus supra memoratur, Andegavensis
rei curam annum circa 1010, teste non uno, suscepit.” And as they have
been describing various dealings of the bishop with Fulk the Black long
before 1010, it is quite clear they take this Fulk to be some one else;
though one would like to see their witnesses and know who he really was.
There is however another clue which may suggest a different date for
this second pilgrimage. There are only two ways of making sense of the
account given in the _Gesta Cons._ (Marchegay, _Comtes_, pp. 88–91)
of “the wicked Landry’s” attack on Anjou and the war of Châteaudun.
In that account the first misdoings of Landry and his aggressions
against Sulpice and Archambald of Amboise are put in the reign of
Count Maurice; then Maurice dies and his son Fulk succeeds him, and
the raid upon Châteaudun follows as the first exploit of “juvenis haud
modici pectoris.” Now we have seen that Maurice was not Fulk’s father
but his younger brother, and never was count of Anjou at all. We must
therefore either regard the introduction of Maurice as a complete myth
and delusion, or interpret the tale as a distorted account of a regency
undertaken by Maurice during his brother’s absence. It is hard to see
why the chroniclers should have gratuitously dragged in Maurice without
any reason. Moreover the charter which establishes the date of Fulk’s
first pilgrimage informs us that he left his brother as regent of Anjou
on that occasion (Mabille, Introd. _Comtes_, p. lxxvi); it is therefore
quite possible that he may have done the same thing a second time. On
this theory, to ascertain the date of the war with Landry would be
equivalent to ascertaining the date of Fulk’s second pilgrimage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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