[185] Ch. H. Besnard, “La coupole nervée de la Tour St. Aubin d’Angers,” in Congrès Archéologique, 1910, vol. 2, p. 196; L. de Farcy, “Tour St. Aubin,” in Bulletin Monumental, 1906, p. 558.
[186] Beginning with a Breton woodsman, five counts of Anjou ruled before Fulk III the Black (989-1040). He held Vendôme, Amboise, and Loches, where he founded Beaulieu Abbey, and he won Chinon, and Saumur, where he established St. Florent-les-Saumur. His grandfather, Fulk II the Good, a canon in St. Martin’s at Tours, and a poet, had said, “Rex illiteratus est asinus coronatus,” which Henry I of England was fond of repeating. The son of Fulk Nerra was Geoffrey Martel (d. 1060), who won Tours and Le Mans, but later lost the overlordship of the latter to William the Conqueror. He founded the Trinité at Vendôme. Geoffrey and Fulk, his two nephews, succeeded in turn, but Geoffrey was kept imprisoned in Chinon for almost thirty years by his unnatural brother Fulk Rechin, or the Quarreler, who had all the greed, subtlety, and turbulance of his line, without its genius for statesmanship. He is counted as the first historian of the Middle Ages. (See Hist. littér. de la France (Paris, 1750), vol. 9, p. 391.) Fulk Rechin’s son by the beautiful Bertrada de Montfort (who deserted him for the king of France) was Fulk V, who wedded the heiress of Maine. When later Fulk V won a second heiress in the East, he left Anjou and Maine to his son Geoffrey the Handsome, and reigned as king of Jerusalem (d. 1143). Geoffrey (d. 1151), nicknamed Plantagenet, married to the heiress of Normandy and England, always preferred Le Mans to Angers. His son became Henry II of England and a leader in Europe because of his territorial possessions on the Continent and his ability as a statesman.
[187] The abbatial of St. Nicolas-du-Ronceray is in a lamentable state; its nave serves as a hall for the Arts and Crafts school, the transept’s north arm is a laundry, and its south arm a roofless ruin. The dome at its crossing is without distinct pedestal. The nuns of this house erected at the side of their own sanctuary, the Trinité church for parish use. The present admirable Trinité was built after a fire in 1062. Its chevet and transept are the oldest parts, and then rose the nave, covered with First-Period Angevin vaults (c. 1170). Chapel-like niches are lost in the thickness of the walls.
Angers’ abbatial of St. Martin contains Gallo-Roman, Merovingian, and Carolingian vestiges, and parts of the XI, XII, and XV centuries. Fulk Nerra rebuilt it on returning from one of his pilgrimages. Over its transept-crossing is a dome modeled on the one at Fontevrault, without separate pedestal. The church possesses one of the earliest eight-branch Gothic vaults extant; King René added the Flamboyant parts. Chanoine Pinier at his own expense is restoring the choir and transept.
Congrès Archéologique, 1910, vol. 1, p. 211, “St. Martin,” Chanoine Pinier; and vol. 2, p. 12, “St. Nicolas-du-Ronceray,” E. Lefèvre-Pontalis.
[188] Bishop Ulger carried forward, too, the episcopal palace which stood on V-century walls over the Roman citadel and is connected with the cathedral’s transept. Its ancient façade is the finest civic monument in Angers (1101-49). The ground floor was used as a stable; over it rose Bishop Ulger’s synodal hall, and under the rafters was made a library in the XV century. Angers is exceptionally rich in late-Gothic and Renaissance mansions. G. d’Espinay, Angers et l’Anjou (Angers, 1903); ibid., Notices archéol., Les monuments d’Angers, Saumur et ses environs (Angers, 1875), 2 vols.
[189] The first line of Anjou’s counts came to an end when John Lackland did away with his nephew, Arthur of Brittany. The region of the Loire became then most willingly a part of Phillipe-Auguste’s royal domain. Anjou was given as an appanage to St. Louis’ brother Charles d’Anjou, whose first wife brought him Provence, and who by invitation and conquest became king of the Two Sicilies. His son, Charles II, built the church of St. Maximin in Provence. He left only one daughter, who married the Count of Valois, like herself of St. Louis’ direct line. The son of that union mounted the French throne as Philip VI. It was his son, Jean le Bon, who again detached Anjou from the French crown for his son Louis, who began the short-lived third line of Angevin princes.
[190] That a portion of Angers’ palace walls dates from Gallo-Roman times is indicated by the courses of brick in the small stones. When such brick courses alternate with big material, the work was done after 1000. Of the red flint-stone castle built by Fulk Nerra only fragments remain. A fire in 1132 and later disasters wiped out the counts’ residence, to which Henry Plantagenet had added. L. de Farcy, “La chapelle du château d’Angers,” in Revue de l’art chrétien, 1902; Henri René, Le château d’Angers (Angers, 1908); H. Havard, éd., La France artistique et monumental, vol. 2, “Angers,” H. Jouin.
[191] The nave of St. Serge is a mediocre XV-century structure. In its transept walls are vestiges of earlier churches; the cordons of brick in the stonework date from Carolingian times. Congrès Archéologique, 1871 and 1910; V. Godard-Faultier, “Le cœur de St. Serge à Angers,” in Bulletin Monumental, 1866, vol. 32; J. Denais, “Histoire et description de l’église St. Serge à Angers,” in L’inventaire des richesses d’art de la France, vol. 4, p. 20, Province, monuments religieux (Paris, Plon).
[192] Congrès Archéologique, 1862 and 1910; Prosper Merimée, Notes d’un voyage dans l’Ouest de la France (Paris, 1836), pp. 345-358; G. d’Espinay, Notices archéologiques. Les monuments d’Angers, Saumur et ses environs (Angers, 1875), 2 vols.; Célestin Port, “Les stalles et les tapisseries de St. Pierre de Saumur,” in Revue des Sociétés savantes, 1868, p. 278; ibid., Dictionnaire historique, géographique, et biographique de Maine-et-Loire (Paris and Angers, 1874-78), 3 vols.; V. Godard-Faultrier, Monuments antiques de l’Anjou, arrondissement de Saumur (Angers, 1863); Jules Juiffrey, “Tapisserie du XVe siécle à l’église Notre Dame-de-Nantilly à Saumur,” in Revue de l’art ancien et moderne, 1897, vol. 4, p. 75; Eugène Müntz, Jules Juiffrey, Alex. Pinchart, Histoire générale de la tapisserie (Paris, 1879-84), 3 vols.