Last modified: 2004-07-03 by ivan sache
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The first House of Anjou
Anjou was originally known as the pagus andecavis, named after the Gaul tribe of Andecaves. At the end of the IXth century, Charles le Chauve, king of Francia occidentalis, allied himself to the Duke of Brittany and expelled the Vikings from Anjou. He appointed Robert le Fort, the root of the Capetian house, to protect the area against potential invaders.
At the end of the IXth century, the royal power faded away and feudal states emerged all over France. Foulques I le Roux founded in 898 the first house of Anjou. He bore the hereditary title of count of Anjou. Foulques II le Bon confiscated Maine to the witless king of France Louis IV. Geoffroi I Grisegonelle accepted the homage of the count of Nantes. The counts of Anjou made use of the rivalry between the Robertians and the last Carolingians to preserve their independence and increase their power.
Accordingly, the county of Anjou was in the XI-XIIth centuries a
very powerful state.
Count Foulques III Nerra (987-1040) was one of the most brilliant
lords of that time. He was a fiercy and greedy warrior, not to say a
criminal, who always attempted to increase his state: he received
Saintonge as a fief from the duke of
Aquitaine, and seized the cities of
Blois, Châteaudun, Langeais,
Saumur, Vendôme and Tours, being
only expelled from the latter city by king of France Robert le Pieux.
Anjou main competitor was the county of Blois, which depended on the
powerful county of Champagne but was almost
totally annexated by Anjou. Foulques also had a few periods of
repentance, during which he funded several churches and abbeys and
went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Foulques' son, Geoffrei II Martel (count in 1040-1060) conquered
Maine and
Touraine but died without a male heir.
His two nephews fought for the succession: the apathetic Foulques IV
le Réchin (lit., the Despondent) defeated Geoffrei III but
lost Saintonge, Maine and Gâtinais. In 1092, king of France
Philippe I seduced, abducted and married Geoffrei's wife, Bertrade de
Montfort. Pope Urban II refused to cancel Philippe's first marriage
with queen Berthe and excommunicated him. The king's excommunication
was lifted by the council of Beaugency in 1104, four years only
before the king's death.
Foulques V le Jeune (count in 1109-1131) put the county on his feet
again by making use of the French-English rivalry. He reincorporated
Maine by marriage in 1109. In 1128, he married his son Geoffrei V le
Bel with Mathilde, daughter of king of England Henry I Beauclerc and
widow of German Emperor Henry V. In 1129, Foulques married
Mélisande, daughter and heir of king of Jerusalem Baudouin II,
and founded there a new Anjou dynasty.
The Plantagenet Empire
Geoffrei V (count in 1131-1151) was nicknamed Plantagenet
because he wore a hat decorated with a branch of broom (genest
at that time, genêt in modern French). On his wife's
behalf, Geoffrei revendicated the throne of England and annexated the
duchy of Normandy in 1144.
In 1152, Henri Plantagenet, son of Geoffrei V and Mathilde, married
Aliénor d'Aquitaine, who had just divorced from king of France
Louis VII. The count's domain, which already included Anjou, Maine,
Touraine and Normandy, incorporated
Poitou, Périgord,
Limousin,
Angoumois, Saintonge and
Gascogne. Suzereignty was granted over
Auvergne and the
county of Toulouse. In 1153, Henri
forced Etienne of Blois, king of England, to recognize him as his
successor. Henri II was crowned king of England in 1154.Henri II then
ruled the so-called "Anglo-Angevin Empire" and was much more powerful
than the Capetian King of France. However, the Capetians eventually
expelled the Plantagenets by making use of the complex feudal laws,
the familial troubles inside the Plantagenet dynasty, and the local
aspirations of the provinces included by force in the Plantagenet
Empire.
Henri II's son and successor Richard Lionheart was killed in Châlus in 1199. He was succeded by his treacherous and scheming brother John Lackland. John abducted Isabelle of Angoulême, betrothed to the Count of Marche, and married her in Chinon on 30 August 1200. The barons of Poitou complained and John was summoned to the Royal Court in Paris. Since John refuse to come to Paris, king of France Philippe-Auguste confiscated all his French possessions. Philippe-Auguste achieved the confiscation by seizing Chinon in 1205. In 1213, John set up an English-German coalition, which was defeated in 1214 in la Roche-aux-Moines, near Angers. The treaty of Chinon (18 September 1214) officialized John's defeat, and John died two years later.
The second House of Anjou
According to the testament of king of France Louis VIII, Charles, brother of Louis IX (Saint Louis) was granted Anjou as his apanage. Charles I d'Anjou founded the second house of Anjou. He was count of Anjou, Maine and Provence (1246-1285), King of Sicily (1266-1282), King of Naples (1282-1285) after having been expelled from Sicily following the Sicilian Vespers, King of Albania (1272) and King of Jerusalem (1277). The apanage was later transfered from the Capetians to the Valois. When Philippe VI de Valois, son of Charles de Valois, himself brother of king of France Philippe le Bel, was crowned king of France in 1326, Anjou was incorporated to the royal domain.
The third House of Anjou
In 1356, king Jean II le Bon reestablished the apanage on Anjou,
as a duchy, for his son Louis, who founded the third house of Anjou.
Jean was defeated in Poitiers by the Black Prince and sent to London
as an hostage. In 1360, he came back to France but two of his sons,
including Louis, went to London as hostages. Louis escaped and king
Jean had to come back to London, where he died in 1364.
The third house of Anjou extincted with René I (1409-1480),
known as le Bon Roi René (the Good King René).
René was one of the most educated princes of his times: he
could speak French, Latin, Ancient Greek, Hebrew, Catalan and
Italian, composed and played music, and wrote poems. René was
also interested in mathematics, geology, and jurisprudence. He
organized popular festivals, promoted traditional chevalry and was
fond of gardening: he is said to have introduced the carnation, the
rose of Provins and the Muscat grapes in his states. René was
also king of Sicily (nominally), duke of
Lorraine and count of Provence. At the end
of his life, he understood he would not be able to resist King of
France Louis XI, who wanted to reincorporate Anjou to his domain, and
retired in Aix-en-Provence, where he died
in 1480.
Ivan Sache, 14 December 2002
The banner of arms of Anjou is:
d'azur aux trois fleurs de lys d'or, à la bordure cousue de gueules (GASO)
In English:
Azure, three fleurs de lis or a bordure gules (Brian Timms)
The second and third houses of Anjou (1246-1480) bore from 1270 a semy of fleurs-de-lys (France ancient) with a bordure gules as the mark of cadency. These are the arms called Anjou ancient. When Louis XI reincorporated Anjou to France in 1480, the arms of Anjou kept the mark of cadency but three fleur-de-lys replaced the semy (Anjou modern), since king of France Charles V had in the meantime made a similar change to the arms of France (France modern).
The flag of Anjou is common in the department of Maine-et-Loire, which corresponds more or less to the province of Anjou in 1789 (then much smaller than the county of Anjou in the XIIth century). It is flown for instance in front of the city hall of Angers, along with the flags of France, European Union and Angers, and over the castle of Angers during summer season.
There is a city of Anjou, now part of Montreal in the province of Quebec (Canada). The municipal flag of Anjou bears a shield based on the arms of Anjou ancient.
Ivan Sache, 14 December 2002