Geoffroy II of Anjou

Geoffroy (Gaufridus ou' Goffredus ) II' , known as Martel , born the October 14th 1006, dead the November 14th 1060, was count de Vendôme of 1032 with 1056, count d' Anjou of 1040 with 1060 and count de Tours of 1044 with 1060. It was of the family of the Ingelgeriens and wire of Foulque III '' Nerra '', count d' Anjou, and of Hildegarde.

Biography

Geoffroy began his career by being made a place out of Anjou, his/her father not wanting to share the capacity in Anjou. He married in 1032 Agnès of Burgundy, the widow of the count de Poitiers Guillaume V Large the. His wife, wanting to keep a preeminent place in Aquitaine, incited it to intervene in this area, where it fought wire resulting from the first marriages of Guillaume V, Guillaume VI and Eudes. It overcame Guillaume VI in 1033 with Moncontour and seized Saintonge. With died of Eudes, killed in 1039 with the seat of Mauzé by attacking Geoffroy II of Thouars, an ally of Geoffroy, it was his son-in-law Guillaume VII Aigret who became count de Poitiers and duke of Aquitaine, and Geoffroy benefitted from his young age to have the maimise on these strongholds.

During this period, in 1032, his/her half-sister Adele, countess of Vendôme, scrambled with his/her son Foulques Oison and yielded to Geoffroy his half of the Comté of Vendôme. Quickly Geoffroy made the conquest of other half, évinçant Foulques, which recovered the county only in 1056, on the request of the king Henri I {{er}}. During its period with Vendôme, it founded the abbey of the Trinity.

the competition grows between the father, Foulque Nerra, and the son, Geoffroy, who wished to take the supervision of the county of Anjou. A war opposed them 1036 to 1039, at the end which Geoffroy was overcome. However, Foulques died the following year.

Combined with king Henri Ier, it fights the house of Blois and overcomes and captures the count Thibaut III with Nouy in 1044. This one will recover its freedom only in exchange of the Touraine, where Geoffroy will évincera the partisans of the count de Blois. But the king then started to worry about the power of the count d' Anjou and sought to thwart the ambitions of this last.

After Touraine, it tried to seize the Comté of Maine, but ran up against the opposition of the counts de Maine, that of Gervais of Castle-of-Dormouse, bishop of Mans and with the support that William the Conqueror, duke of Normandy brought to its enemies. Having captured (1047) and having kept captive Gervais (during 7 years), it was excommunicated by the pope in 1049. It ends up taking Mans in 1057, but this conquest will not survive to him.

It gives up its titles in 1060, is made monk with Saint Nicolas's Day of Angers and dies the November 14th.

They are its accounts transmitted by oral tradition to its Foulques nephew Réchin which inspired the drafting of " to him; the Chronicle of the exploits of the Counts d' Anjou" writing of 1100 to 1140 by a monk angevin.

Marriages

He had married in 1032 Agnès of Burgundy, girl of Otte-Guillaume, count de Bourgogne and of Ermentrude de Roucy, and widow of Guillaume V Large the, duke of Aquitaine and count de Poitiers. They did not have a child and Geoffroy, reducing a relationship with the third degree, made cancel the marriage in 1049 and 1052. The true reason is probably the absence of children resulting from the marriage.

It remaria shortly after with Grécia, of the house of Langeais and widow of Berlay Ier, lord of Montreuil. He repudiated it to marry a woman of greater condition, Adèle, girl of a count Eudes, probably of the house of Blois, but benefitted from a relationship of the 3° to the 4° degree to repudiate it when the political need was felt some, took again Grécia, and finally replaced it by Adélaïde " Theutonice".

Of these various wives (the monks chroniclers spoke rather about concubines), it did not have any child, and it was its nephew Geoffroy III Bearded the, wire of his/her Ermengarde-White sister , which succeeded to him.

Sources

FranceBalade
Chronic Foulques III of Anjou
of the Counts d' Anjou

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