Count Fulk of Anjou III Nerra ¹

  General Notes:

Byname FULK THE BLACK, French FOULQUES LE NOIR, count of Anjou (987-1040), the most powerful of the early rulers of the Angevin dynasty.

Fulk III was the founder of Angevin power. He was only fifteen when he succeeded his father, and had a violent but also pious temperament, was partial to acts of extreme cruelty as well as penitence.

Exposed at first to the attacks of the counts of Brittany, Fulk had to fight for a long time to defend his frontiers, finally driving the Bretons back beyond the frontiers of Anjou. Having made himself master in the west, he turned his attention to the east and came into conflict with the count of Blois, Eudes II, over the territory of Saumur and a considerable part of Touraine. He defeated Eudes at Pontlevoy in 1016 and surprised and took Saumur 10 years later.

A ruthless warrior who burned and pillaged the monasteries in his path, Fulk nevertheless felt the need for penance, making three pilgrimages to the Holy Land and founding or restoring several abbeys, including those in or near Angers, Loches, and Saumur. He also built strongly fortified castles of stone (instead of wood) along the border of his territory. For this reason he was called le Grand Bâtisseur ("the Great Builder").

In his most notorious act, he had his first wife (and cousin) Elisabeth of Vendôme burned at the stake in her wedding dress, after he discovered her in adultery with a goatherd in December 999. On the other hand, he made four pilgrimages to the Holy Land in 1002, 1008, and 1038 and, in 1007, built the great abbey at Beaulieu-lès-Loches.

  Death Notes:

He died on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, having reigned 53 years.

Fulk married Hildegarde of Sundgau in 1001.