2. A MS. representing the earliest form of the Gesta Cons. (ending in 1106) says just the opposite: Anjou and Saintonge to Geoffrey, Touraine and Gâtinais to Fulk (Marchegay, Comtes, p. 131, note 1. See Mabille, introd. Comtes, ib. pp. iv–viii).
3. Orderic (Duchesne, Hist. Norm. Scriptt., p. 532) and Will. Poitiers (ib. pp. 188, 189) ignore Fulk and make Geoffrey sole heir.
The first version is easily disposed of. In three charters of S. Florence of Saumur, one of 1061 (Marchegay, Archives d’Anjou, vol. i. p. 259) and two whose dates must be between 1062 and 1066 (ib. p. 278), and in one of S. Maur, 1066 (ib. pp. 358–360), Geoffrey the Bearded is formally described as count of Anjou. The strongest proof of all is a charter of Fulk Rechin himself, March 11, 1068, setting forth how Geoffrey, nephew and heir of Geoffrey Martel, had made certain promises to S. Florence, which he, Fulk, having now got possession of Anjou, fulfilled (ib. p. 260).
The second version, though apparently not contradicted by any documentary proof, has nothing to support it, and contains an internal difficulty. For how could Martel leave the Gâtinais to Fulk? Surely it was not his to leave at all, but would pass as a matter of course to Geoffrey as Alberic’s (Geoffrey’s?) eldest son. The old confusion of the relations of the Gâtinais to Anjou peeps out again here.
The third account is that of foreign writers; but those writers are Orderic and William of Poitiers. And they are not unsupported. Geoffrey Martel’s last act, a charter granted to Marmoutier on his deathbed, is signed by his nephew and successor-designate Geoffrey, and by Fulk, who is described simply as the latter’s brother (Mabille, introd. Comtes, p. lxxxiv).
The conclusion to which all this leads is that Martel bequeathed the whole of his dominions to his elder nephew Geoffrey, and that all the conflicting stories of a division of territory were inventions to save the character of Fulk Rechin. It is possible that Martel did, as Fulk says, invest him with Saintonge, but even here it is evident that the elder brother’s rights were reserved, for it is Geoffrey, not Fulk, who fights for Saintonge with the duke of Aquitaine.
One portion of Martel’s dominions is named in none of these accounts, except Fulk’s; and that is Maine. Fulk coolly puts it into the list of his own possessions, and M. Mabille regards this as a blunder proving that the author of the Fragment was not what he professes to be. May it not rather tell the other way? A forger would have remembered that Maine was lost and not risked such a glaring falsehood; the count ignores its de facto loss because he holds himself its overlord de jure. We shall find Geoffrey the Bearded making his appearance as titular overlord of Maine in 1063. Did Martel feel about Maine as William the Conqueror seems to have felt about England?
Note C.
THE WAR OF SAINTONGE.
The account of this war between Geoffrey the Bearded and Guy-Geoffrey, alias William VII., of Aquitaine, has to be made out from one direct source and one indirect one. The first is the Chron. S. Maxent. a. 1061 (Marchegay, Eglises, pp. 402, 403): “Goffredus et Fulco habentes certamen cum Gaufredo duce propter Sanctonas, venientes cum magno exercitu, pugnaverunt cum eo in bello etiam in Aquitaniâ, ubi e contrario Pictavorum exercitus adunatus est; et ab utrisque partibus magnis animositatibus pugnatum est, sed traditores belli et ceteri signiferi, vexillis projectis, exercitum Pictavensium in fugam verterunt. Quapropter vulnerati multi sunt et plurimi occisi atque nonnulli capti; unde quidam versibus eam confusionem ita describit, dicens: Cum de Pictavis bellum sit et Andegavinis, Inque die Martis fuit et Sancti Benedicti, Circa forte Caput Wultonnæ contigit esse, Annus millenus tunc sexagesimus unus.”
That entry comprises all the direct information on the subject. The Angevin monastic chronicles and Fulk Rechin do not mention it at all. Neither do the Gesta Cons. in the right place; but they mix it up with the war between Geoffrey Martel and William the Fat in 1033. By the light of the Chron. S. Maxent., it seems possible to disentangle the two stories. It even seems possible to make sense of a passage in the Gesta which never can be sense as it stands, by understanding it as referring to Geoffrey the Bearded instead of his uncle: “Willelmus Pictavensium comes consulatum Sanctonicum suum esse volebat et vi preoccupatum tenebat, quia patrui sui fuerat. Martellus eumdem consulatum reclamabat quia avi sui fuerat, cujus heredes absque liberis mortui erant; et ideo ad heredes sororis avi sui debere reverti affirmabat” (Gesta Cons., Marchegay, Comtes, p. 126). This is the story by which the Gesta-writer professes to explain the cause of the war of Geoffrey Martel and William the Fat, of which he then gives an elaborate account, ending with William’s capture and the consequent surrender of Saintes to Geoffrey. But the story is utterly senseless; the claims of William and Martel as therein stated are alike devoid of all show of reason. In the account of the war itself, too, there are strong traces of confusion; Saintes is assumed to have passed back into the duke’s hands, of which there is no sign elsewhere; and to crown all, the scene of the battle in which William is taken is laid, not as by the Chron. S. Maxent. (a. 1032, Marchegay, Eglises, p. 392) and Fulk Rechin (Comtes, p. 378), at S. Jouin-de-Marne or Montcontour, but at Chef-Boutonne. The question then arises: Can this wild tale in the Gesta, which is quite impossible as an explanation of Martel’s war with William V., be interpreted so as to explain his successor’s war with William VII.?