Fulk II of Anjou (c. 905 — 960), called le Bon ("the Good"), was
Count of Anjou from 942 to his death.[a]
Life
Fulk II, born
c. 905,[1] was a son of
Fulk the Red and his wife Roscilla de Loches, daughter of Warnerius,
Seigneur de
Villentrois.[2] He succeeded his father in 942 as the second
Count of
Anjou,[3] and remained in power until 960.[4]
By this time, the
Angevins, Fulk II included, had become particularly adept at establishing
marriage alliances that furthered their goals.[5] His father,
Fulk the Red, had arranged his marriage to Gerberga, daughter[6] of Geoffrey of Nevers and Aba.[b] Among other things, this alliance enabled Fulk to open the doors towards Aquitaine for his daughter,
Adelaide-Blanche, to marry a future king of France (Aba was likely[7] a daughter of
William I, Duke of Aquitaine, and Engelberga, thus of royal blood) and for his son Guy to become
Bishop of le Puy.[8]
After Gerberga's death
c. 952, Fulk made another astute political marriage to the
widow of
Alan II, Duke of Brittany. Alan II had also been Count of Nantes and through this marriage Fulk gained influence in, and possibly control of,
Nantes.[9] His second wife was also the sister of
Theobald I, Count of Blois, which permitted Fulk II to form an alliance with the
House of Blois.[8] He is said to have ordered the murder of
Drogo, Duke of Brittany, Alan II's son with the latter, according to the Chronique de Nantes.
Family
By his spouse Gerberge,[10] Fulk II had several children:
^Refer to
Bernard S. Bachrach, "Fulk Nerra: Neo-Roman Consul, 987-1040" (California, 1993) 261 and 262 for a useful genealogy of the Angevin
comital line.
^The assumption of Bernard S. Bachrach, stating Gerberga was a daughter of Ratburnus I,
Viscount of
Vienne, is not consistent.
References
^K.S.B. Keats-Rohan, Family Trees and the Root of Politics; A Prosopography of Britain and France from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century (The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, UK, 1997), p. 255
^Jim Bradbury, The Capetians: Kings of France, 987-1328 (Hambledon Continuum, London & New York, 2007), p. 56
^Pierre Riché, The Carolingians; A Family Who Forged Europe, Trans. Michael Idomir Allen (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1993), p. 264
^Bernard S. Bachrach, Fulk Nerra the Neo-Roman Consul, 987-1040 (University of California Press, 1993), p. xi
^Christian Settipani, Les comtes d’Anjou et leurs alliances aux Xe et XIe siècles, Woodbridge, K.S.B. Keats-Rohan (ed.), Family trees and the Roots of Politics, 1997, p. 228-230
^
abBernard S. Bachrach, Fulk Nerra the Neo-Roman Consul, 987-1040 (University of California Press, 1993), p. 7
^Bernard S. Bachrach, 'The Idea of the Angevin Empire', Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Winter,1978), p. 295
^Those of My Blood: Creating Noble Families in Medieval Francia By Constance Brittain Bouchard, p.23
^Bernard S. Bachrach, Fulk Nerra the Neo-Roman Consul, 987-1040 (University of California Press, 1993), p. 261