Note D.
THE BRETON AND POITEVIN WARS OF GEOFFREY GREYGOWN.
The acts of Geoffrey Greygown in the Gesta Consulum are a mass of fable. The fight with the Dane Æthelwulf and that with the Saxon Æthelred are mythical on the face of them, and the writer’s habitual defiance of chronology is carried to its highest point in this chapter. From him we turn to the story of Fulk Rechin. “Ille igitur Gosfridus Grisa Gonella, pater avi mei Fulconis, cujus probitates enumerare non possumus, excussit Laudunum de manu Pictavensis comitis, et in prœlio superavit eum super Rupes, et persecutus est eum usque ad Mirebellum. Et fugavit Britones, qui venerant Andegavim cum prædatorio exercitu, quorum duces erant filii Isoani (Conani). Et postea fuit cum duce Hugone in obsidione apud Marsonum, ubi arripuit eum infirmitas quâ exspiravit; et corpus illius allatum est Turonum et sepultum in ecclesiâ B. Martini” (Fulk Rechin, Marchegay, Comtes, p. 376).
Whoever was the author of this account, he clearly knew or cared nothing about the stories of the monkish writers, but had a perfectly distinct source of information unknown to them. For their legends he substitutes two things: a war with the count of Poitou, and a war with the duke of Britanny. On each of these wars we get some information from one other authority; the question is how to make this other authority tally with Fulk.
1. As to the Breton war, which seems to be the earlier in date.
No one but Fulk mentions the raid of Conan’s sons upon Angers; and M. Mabille (Introd. Comtes, p. xlviii) objects to it on the ground that Conan’s sons were not contemporaries of Geoffrey.
Conan of Rennes was killed in 992 in a battle with Geoffrey’s son. He had been married in 970 to Geoffrey’s daughter Hermengard (see above, pp. [121], [135]). Now a daughter of Geoffrey in 970 must have been almost a child, but it by no means follows that her husband was equally young. On the contrary, he seems to have been sufficiently grown up to take a part in politics twenty years before (Morice, Hist. Bret. vol. i. p. 62). It is certain that he had several sons; it is certain that two at least of them were not Hermengard’s; it is likely that none of them were, except his successor Geoffrey. Supposing Conan was somewhat over fifty when killed (and he may have been older still) that would make him about thirty when he married Hermengard; he might have had sons ten years before that, and those sons might very easily head an attack upon their stepmother’s father in 980 or thereabouts. Surely M. Mabille here makes a needless stumbling-block of the chronology.
If no other writer confirms Fulk’s story, neither does any contradict it. But in the Gesta Consulum (Marchegay, Comtes, pp. 91–93) an exactly similar tale is told, only in much more detail and with this one difference, that Fulk Nerra is substituted for Geoffrey Greygown, and the raid is made to take place just before that other battle of Conquereux, in 992, in which Conan perished. The only question now is, which date is the likeliest, Fulk’s or John’s? in other words, which of these two writers is the better to be trusted? Surely there can be no doubt about the choice, and we must conclude that, for once, the monk who credits Greygown with so many exploits that he never performed has denied him the honour of one to which he is really entitled.
Fulk Rechin’s account of Geoffrey’s Breton war ends here. The Breton chroniclers ignore this part of the affair altogether; they seem to take up the thread of the story where the Angevin drops it. It is they who tell us of the homage of Guerech, and of the battle of Conquereux; and their accounts of the latter are somewhat puzzling. The Chron. Britann. in Lobineau (Hist. Bret., vol. ii. col. 32) says: “982. Primum bellum Britannorum et Andegavorum in Concruz.” The Chron. S. Michael. (Labbe, Bibl. Nova, vol. i. p. 350; Rer. Gall. Scriptt., vol. ix. p. 98) says: “981. Conanus Curvus contra Andegavenses in Concurrum optime pugnavit.” But in the other two Breton chronicles the Angevins do not appear. The Chron. Namnetense (Rer. Gall. Scriptt., vol. viii. p. 278) describes the battle as one between Conan and Guerech; the Chron. Briocense (Morice, Hist. Bret., preuves, vol. i. col. 32) does the same, and moreover adds that Conan was severely wounded in the right arm and fled defeated. This last is the only distinct record of the issue of the battle; nevertheless there are some little indications which, taken together, give some ground for thinking its record is wrong. 1st. There is the negative evidence of the silence of the Angevin writers about the whole affair; they ignore the first battle of Conquereux as completely as the Bretons ignore the unsuccessful raid of Conan’s sons. This looks as if each party chronicled its own successes, and carefully avoided mentioning those of its adversaries. 2d. In the Hist. S. Flor. Salm. (Marchegay, Eglises, p. 260) is a proverb “Bellum Conquerentium quo tortum superavit rectum”—an obvious pun on Conan’s nickname, “Tortus” or “Curvus.” It is there quoted as having arisen from the battle of Conquereux in 992—the only one which it suits the Angevin writers to admit. But this is nonsense, for the writer has himself just told us that in that battle Conan was defeated and slain. Therefore “the crooked overcame the straight,” i.e. Conan won the victory, in an earlier battle of Conquereux.
But how then are we to account for the Chronicle of St. Brieuc’s very circumstantial statement of Conan’s defeat?—This chronicle—a late compilation—is our only authority for all the details of the war; for Guerech’s capture and homage, and in short for all matters specially relating to Nantes. The tone of all this part of it shews plainly that its compiler, or more likely the earlier writer whom he was here copying, was a violently patriotic man of Nantes, who hated the Rennes party and the Angevins about equally, and whose chief aim was to depreciate them both and exalt the house of Nantes in the person of Guerech. So great is his spite against the Angevins that he will not even allow them the credit of having slain Conan at the second battle of Conquereux, but says Conan fell in a fight with some rebel subjects of his own! He therefore still more naturally ignores the Angevin share in the first battle of Conquereux, and makes his hero Guerech into a triumphant victor. The cause of his hatred to Anjou is of course the mean trick whereby Geoffrey obtained Guerech’s homage. There can be little doubt that the battle was after this homage—was in fact caused by it; but the facts are quite enough to account for the Nantes writer putting, as he does, the battle first, before he brings the Angevins in at all, and giving all the glory to Guerech.