Gottfried I (Anjou)

Gottfried I. , called gray jacket , French Geoffroy Ier Grisegonelle , English Geoffrey († July 21, 987 ) was a count of Anjou from the family of the first house of Anjou . He was a son of Count Fulko II of the Good († 958) and his first wife Gerberge.

Life

At the beginning of his reign, Gottfried and Theobald I of Blois supported King Lothar against the Norman Duke Richard I Long Sword and defended Nantes . In 970 he defeated Duke Wilhelm IV of Aquitaine at Roches , who had tried to win Gottfried's possessions in Poitou ( Loudun , Mirebeau ).

The death of Count Theobald I of Blois in 975 changed the relationship between the Anjou and Blois houses, which from then on were to become bitter enemies in the struggle for supremacy in north-eastern France, because Theobald's successor, Odo I , pursued an expansion policy, which went against the interests of Anjou. The scene of the fight was Brittany , where Odo supported Count Conan the Crooked of Rennes against the Count of Nantes , who in turn was a protege of Gottfried. In the first battle of Conquereuil (981) Gottfried fended off an attack by Conan, after which Gottfried took direct control of Nantes in 984, after the latter's Count Gueréch tried to break out of the tutelage of Gottfried by allying himself with King Lothar. But Gottfried, a loyal follower of the Robertin Hugo Capet , had the count locked up and built the castle Le Pallet in front of Nantes .

Directed against Blois, Gottfried strengthened his influence in the Touraine and Berry by taking control of several abbeys (including Saint-Martin de Tours ) and allied with local lords, such as those of Preuilly . The enmity between the two houses was also reflected in the power struggle for the royal throne between the Robertinians and Carolingians , while Gottfried stood by Hugo Capet, Odo supported King Lothar and, after him, his brother Karl of Lower Lorraine . In July 987 Gottfried supported the elevation of Hugo Capet to the rank of new king. In the same month, allied with Count Burchard the Venerable of Vendôme , he besieged the castle in Marçon (today in the Sarthe department ), which belonged to Odo von Blois, where he died.

The change of dynasty from the Carolingians to the Robertines / Capetians brought some changes for Gottfried and his successors. If he and his ancestors as Counts of Anjou (or Vice Counts of Angers ) were only vassals of the Robertines in their capacity as Dukes of Franzien (or Margraves of Neustria ), his descendants were now to become crown vassals, since the Duchy of Franzien with the accession to the throne of Capet in fact ceased to exist. Other powerful vassals, such as the Counts of Blois or Toulouse, as well as the Dukes of Aquitaine, refused Hugo Capet recognition and regarded him as a usurper. As a result, the Counts of Anjou advanced to become the most important natural allies of the new royal family and were an important support to it in the following generations.

Gottfried died on July 21, 987, three weeks after Hugo Capet's coronation and anointing.

Marriages and offspring

Gottfried married around 965 Adele von Vermandois († 974), a daughter of Count Robert von Vermandois and the Adelais "Wera" of Burgundy. Both children were:

• Ermengarde († after 982)

⚭ 973 Conan the Crooked , Count of Rennes, Duke of Brittany since 990

• Fulko III. Nerra (* around 970; † June 21, 1040), successor as Count of Anjou
• Gottfried († 974)
• Gerberge (* 974 or after; † April 1040)

⚭ before 1000 Count Wilhelm IV. Taillefer of Angoulême († April 6, 1028) ( House Taillefer )

A second marriage by Gottfried in 979, from which a son named Maurice emerged, causes genealogical confusion. The second woman named Adelais / Adelheid († 984) is named as the widow of Count Lambert I of Chalon and was a daughter of Duke Giselbert of Burgundy . But since Gottfried's father-in-law was also married to a daughter of the same name of the Duke of Burgundy, who may have been the same wife of Count Lambert, Gottfried would have married the mother of his first wife.
A theory that emerged in the 17th century assumes that Duke Giselbert had two daughters named Adelais and that Gottfried married the aunt of his first wife instead of his mother.

Web links

• FranceBalade (French)
• Gottfried Graujacket at Foundation for Medieval Genealogy (English)

predecessor	Office	successor
Fulko II.	Count of Anjou 958-987	Fulko III. Nerra
Lambert	Count of Chalon-sur-Saone 978–987	Hugo I.