Note A.
THE HOUSES OF ANJOU AND GÂTINAIS.

All historians are agreed that Geoffrey the Bearded and Fulk Rechin were sons of Geoffrey Martel’s sister and of a count (or viscount) of Gâtinais, or Châteaulandon, which is the same thing—the Gâtinais being a district on the north-eastern border of the Orléanais whereof Châteaulandon was the capital. But the names of both husband and wife differ in different accounts. Fulk Rechin (Marchegay, Comtes, p. 375) calls his mother Hermengard; R. Diceto (ib. p. 333; Stubbs, vol. i. p. 185) calls her Adela; in the Gesta Cons. no names are given. If we could be sure that Fulk really wrote the fragment which bears his name, his testimony would of course be decisive; as it is, we are left in doubt. The point is one of trifling importance, for whatever the lady’s name may have been, there is no doubt that she was the daughter of Fulk the Black and Hildegard. But who was her husband?

First, as to his name. The Gesta Cons. do not mention it. The Chron. S. Maxent. a. 1060 (Marchegay, Eglises, p. 402), Hugh of Fleury (Rer. Gall. Scriptt., vol. xii. p. 797), and R. Diceto (Marchegay, Comtes, p. 333; Stubbs, vol. i. p. 185) call him Alberic. Fulk Rechin (as above) calls him Geoffrey. None of them tell us anything about him. It seems in fact to be the aim of the Angevin writers to keep us in the dark as to the descent of the later counts of Anjou from the house of Gâtinais through the husband of Hermengard-Adela; but they try to make out a connexion between the two families six generations further back. One of the earliest legends in the Gesta Cons. (Marchegay, Comtes, pp. 39–45) tells how Châteaulandon and the Gâtinais were given to Ingelger as a reward for his defence of his slandered godmother, the daughter and heiress of a Count Geoffrey of Gâtinais, and the alleged gift is coupled with a grant from the king of the viscounty of Orléans. What Ingelger may or may not have held it is impossible to say, as we really know nothing about him. But there is proof that the viscounty of Orléans at least did not pass to his descendants. The very first known charter of Fulk the Good, one dated May 942, is witnessed by Geoffrey viscount of Orléans; and Geoffrey Greygown’s charter for the reform of S. Aubin’s in 966 is witnessed by Alberic viscount of Gâtinais, whose signature has already appeared in 957, attached to a charter of Theobald the Trickster. This Alberic may very likely have been the son of his predecessor Geoffrey, but he cannot well have been the father of Fulk Nerra’s son-in-law; there is a generation dropped out, and of the man who should fill it the only trace is in Ménage (Hist. de Sablé), who says that Fulk Rechin’s father, Geoffrey count of Gâtinais, was the son of another Geoffrey and Beatrice, daughter of Alberic II. of Mâcon (Mabille, introd. Comtes, pp. lxxxv–lxxxvi). It seems probable that Orléans and Châteaulandon went together in fact as well as in Angevin legend. Assuming therefore that Ménage was copying a document now lost, the pedigree would stand thus:

Geoffrey,
viscount of Orléans 942
｜
Alberic,
viscount in 957 and 966
｜
Geoffrey,
viscount of Orléans and count of Gâtinais
｜
Alberic or Geoffrey=
｜		Hermengard or Adela,
daughter of Fulk Nerra
｜｜
Geoffrey the Bearded.Fulk Rechin.

If we might assume also, with M. Mabille, that the “Alberic” whose signature appears beside that of Fulk the Red in 886 (Mabille, introd. Comtes, p. lix, note 1) was the father of the first Geoffrey of Orléans, then the two names would stand alternate till we come to Hermengard’s husband. Is it just possible that (on a principle somewhat like that which made all the dukes of Aquitaine assume the name of William) this alternation of names grew into a family tradition, so that the son of Geoffrey II. and Beatrice having by some accident been christened by his father’s instead of his grandfather’s name, assumed the latter officially on succeeding to the title, and thus became known to outsiders as “Alberic,” while his own son (Fulk Rechin) spoke of him by his original and real name?

However this may be, he was most probably descended from the family who became viscounts of Orléans at about the same time that the house of Anjou was being founded. They make no figure in history, and the Angevin writers do their best to efface them altogether. Ralf de Diceto just names the father of the two young counts, and that is all; in the Gesta Cons. his very name is dropped, and the reader is left in utter darkness as to who and what Martel’s nephews were. They were Martel’s nephews, and that was all that anybody was intended to know about them. Fulk Rechin himself, or his representative, merges the Châteaulandon connexion almost completely in the Angevin, and regards himself simply as the grandson of Fulk Nerra. After all, they are right; it was Fulk Nerra’s blood that made his grandsons what they were; their father might have been anybody, or, as he almost appears, nobody, for all the influence he had on their characters or their destinies.

Note B.
THE HEIR OF GEOFFREY MARTEL.

Of the disposal of his territories made by Geoffrey Martel there are three versions.

1. The Gesta Cons. (Marchegay, Comtes, p. 131), R. Diceto (ib. p. 333; Stubbs, vol. i. p. 185) and Chron. Tur. Magn. (Salmon, Chron. Touraine, pp. 122, 123) say that Anjou and Saintonge were left to Fulk, Touraine and Gâtinais to Geoffrey.