Introduction: The editor of the cartulary from which I have translated this text dates the following narrative to "c.1032". This must be seen as a very rough approximation. More recent scholarship will have undoubtedly better specified the date and circumstances under which the county of Vendôme passed from its 'native' dynasy into the hands of the counts of Anjou. Cf. Bernard Bachrach, Fulk Nerra, the Neo-Roman Consul, 987-1040 (Berkeley, 1993) and Dominique Barthélemy, La société dans le comté de Vendôme de l'an mil au XIVe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 1993). At this point I have not bothered to check the editor's date(s) against these more recent historians.
TEXT:
How the Honor of Vendôme Came into the Hands of Count Geoffrey
Just as we believe it has been made manifest in the record of the notice
of many predecessors, after Bishop Rainald, son of Count Bouchard, the
honor of Vendôme remained in the hand of Fulk, count of the Angevins.
Furthermore, Fulk had married the sister of the dead bishop [ie., Elisabeth],
with whom he produced no sons and only one daughter [Adela]; this inheritance
belonged to this daughter by right of the closest heir [cui jure propinquioris
heredis hereditas ipsa proveniebat]. While he was still alive the
dead bishop had delivered this daughter of count Fulk - indeed, his own
granddaughter - to a certain powerful man [cuidam potenti] with whom she
was married for a long time [Note 1]. She [Adela]
had four sons by this powerful man [Odo of Nevers], of whom the firstborn
was named Bouchard; having received the county after the death of her grandfather,
the bishop, she delivered it to her father, Count Fulk, so that he might
raise the boy and preserve the honor, which came to the son from the mother,
forever for the boy. And Count Fulk raised the boy until he was able
to rule wisely, and then he delivered the honor to the boy. When
the boy had received his inheritance, he, with the advice of consul Fulk,
who had acknowledged and raised him, subjected the entire honor to the
testimony of men who knew how the honor had existed under the hand of his
ancestor, the bishop, and [who knew] which [parts] had come from ancient
gifts or distraint, and how those parts that had been invaded by whomever
might be returned to his lordship so as to conform to the domainal holdings
of the bishop [a loose translation to preserve the sense of the passage].
So when he came to the forest of Gastines and saw that it had been eradicated
in many places and invaded by many plunderers, Bouchard ordered the houses
built by these invaders to be burned and ordered, as is only just, the
fields that they had sown to be harvested for his own profit. Afterwards
this the honor of which we speak [ie., Vendôme] was given to Count
Geoffrey, son of Count Fulk and uncle of the boy, with the consent of the
mother, her son, and Henry, king of the French. Count Geoffrey received
the honor from the king through this agreement, namely that the mother
and the boy would hold it from him; and this was the arrangement for the
rest of the boy's life. Not long after he had died, it happened that
his father died, and so his mother along with another brother, named Fulk,
returned to her father and her brother, Count Geoffrey. And
the count [Geoffrey] restored the honor to his sister, who substituted
her remaining son [Fulk l'Oison] in the honor in the place of his dead
brother; this was done such that he would do service [serviret] for the
whole honor, even though she would retain half of it. And after the
mother and son had been coexisting in the divided honor [for some time],
the son began to commit many crimes against his mother. When she
could no longer endure this, the extremely sad mother began to consider
how her son, a rebel against his mother, might be disinherited of his honor,
which belonged to her from it origin. For it did not seem fitting
that he who dishonored his mother should possess through her the honor
of the inheritance. On account, therefore, of the injuries [molestias]
which he had suffered from her son, she sold that half of the honor which
she had retained to Count Geoffrey, her brother, and humbly indicated to
him how much she had had to endure from her son. Whence consul Geoffrey
commanded his nephew to come to him, and the count zealously began to heap
abuse on him with words and exhortation concerning the evil which he had
inflicted on his mother. But the nephew would not correct his behavior
towards his mother; rather, he built fortifications and castles [munitiones
et castra] against his lord and uncle, and assailed that part of the honor
which he had obtained from his mother with grave injuries. On account
of all this, and according to the law concerning rebels and desertors [juxta
legem desertoris et rebellis], his lord, Count Geoffrey, deprived him of
the honor which he held from the count. Then Geoffrey marched through
every part of the county, subjugating it to his lordship, and whatever
had been seized or plundered by anyone he restored to its fulness, so that
it equalled what Bishop Rainald had formerly possessed. And when
he had come to the forest of Gastines, he saw it destroyed by new buildings
and filled with the labor of those who had encroached upon it on whatever
occasion. Geoffrey discovered whatever had been devastated or seized
through the testimony of forestors, who had known [agnoverant] the forest
during the time of Bishop Rainald, and restored everything to his own lordship.
For that reason he took and held in his hand and lordship the houses, the
cultivated fields, and whatever he found in this forest according to the
model made in the time of the aforesaid bishop.
NOTES:
1. The principals of the story are as follows. Rainald, bishop
of Paris, was the son of Bouchard the Old, count of Vendome (Bouchard the
Old was dead by 1005). Fulk Nerra, count of the Angevins, was count
between 987 and 1040. Fulk's first wife was Elisabeth, daughter of
Bouchard the Old of Vendome; Elisabeth married Fulk before 990 and was
dead (burned at the stake for adultery) by 1000. Fulk and Elisabeth
had a daughter named Adela, who went on to marry Odo, the second son of
Landry, count of Nevers, and Matilda, daughter of Odo the Great, count
of Burgundy. Adela and Odo had four sons: Bouchard the Bald, Fulk
l'Oison, Guy, and a fourth whose name is unknown. Fulk Nerra married
a second time, to Hildegard, by whom he had Geoffrey Martel (born 1006).
Thus Adela and Geoffrey Martel were half-siblings. Although Geoffrey
Martel only became count in 1040 when his father died, he had been exercising
comital lordship in Anjou and the Touraine in his father's place for many
years prior to this date. Translator's note: I have not had time
to verify the genealogical information provided by the abbé Métais
in his edition of the cartulary. I do not stand by his now-dated
dates or genealogies. For further and/or better information, one might
well consult Bernard Bachrach, Fulk Nerra, the Neo-Roman Consul, 987-1040
(Berkeley, 1993).
SOURCE:
Cartulaire de l'abbaye cardinale de la Trinité de Vendôme,
ed. Charles Métais, volume 1 (Paris: A. Picard et fils, 1893), 1:14-18.
Translated from the Latin by Richard Barton.
This translation is copyrighted by Richard Barton. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, please indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use.