Background
He was the eldest son of Count Geoffrey I, " Grisegonelle " (Grey Tunic) and Adela of Vermandois, was born about 970 and succeeded his father in the countship of Anjou on the 21st of July 987.
He was the eldest son of Count Geoffrey I, " Grisegonelle " (Grey Tunic) and Adela of Vermandois, was born about 970 and succeeded his father in the countship of Anjou on the 21st of July 987.
As recorded in the Chronicle of St. Michael about the dangers of the sea, Geoffrey I Grisegonel died in 987, and in the Chronicle of Mr. Rainald, Archdeacon of Saint Maurice in Angers, from the Chronicle of the Church in Anjou was pointed out the exact date of July 21 (12th calends of August). Geoffrey died at the siege of Marcon, during the war with Edom I, Count Blois, in which he participated as a vassal. The new count of Anjou was his son Fulk under the name of Fulk III Nerra, and Count of Chalon in Burgundy was the stepson of Hugo I, who had already taken the title. Fulk III continued the war on the side of the Robertins against Ed I, Count Blois, Chartres, Chateaudain, Tours, Provins and Rheims, who supported the Carolingian side. In this war, which lasted until the death of Ed I in March 996, he was assisted by King Hugo Capet. Fulk III, like his father, built several castles and fortresses, thus improving the defenses of the county. Fulk sold locks to vassals, whose heirs less than half a century later began to demand independence from his successor, Geoffrey II Martel. In the same "Chronicle of the Monastery of St. Albin in Angers" under the year 1000 there is a record of the arson of Anzher Fulk, a few days after the death of his first wife, Elizabeth de Wanda, whom he stabbed himself. In document No. VI of 1032 in the Carthusary of Thomas I, the cardinal abbot of the Trinity Monastery in Wandome, it is said that Earl Anjou ordered his servants to burn his wife alive. For the sake of repentance, he made pilgrimages three times to the Holy Land. The first time he went to Jerusalem between 1002 and 1003 years. According to the testimony of the same Card of Thomas I, cardinal abbot of the Trinity Monastery in Wandome, he did this as a sign of remorse for the murder of his first wife. During the second pilgrimage in 1008, he had to face the hostile attitude of a number of Muslim rulers who vainly tried to prevent him from reaching Jerusalem. And finally, in 1039, about seventy years old, he came to Jerusalem for the last time, and walked through the streets of the city right up to the Holy Sepulcher half-naked, with a rope around his neck, flogged by his own two servants, and shouting: " Lord, have mercy on the traitor. " This behavior of the Earl of Anjou served as an example for many aristocrats, including Robert I the Magnificent, Duke of Normandy. In 1008, shortly before his second pilgrimage, Fulk III was the instigator of the murder of the Palatine of the South de Beauvais. The crime was committed in front of the French King Robert II, with whom the South hunted. Earl Anjou harboured the killers in his possessions, because of which the king accused him of high treason, and the synod of the bishops in Shel excommunicated. With the blessing of Fulbert, bishop of Chartres, Fulk III brought repentance and was forgiven.
In the Cardboard of Thomas I, the cardinal-abbot of the Trinity Monastery in Wandome, under 1015 there is a record that Fulk Nerra gave all his rights to the lands in favor of the monastery of St. Albin in Angers. Together with his second wife Hildegard and son Geoffrey, he founded a monastery in the name of Our Lady of Mercy in Angers and made a donation to it. In 1016, Fulk III began seizing the feuds in Touraine and striked at Ponlevoi to Ed II, Count Blois. Throughout his life, Count Anjou fought in Touraine with Count Blois, as evidenced by the famous medieval chronicler Raul Glauber. In 1025, he attacked Ed II to help King Robert II in his struggle against Emperor Conrad II. Also, the Count of Anjou fought against the Bretons, allies of the Dukes of Aquitaine. He took away the Mog from them, and in 1026 he seized and plundered Saumur, where even the church of St. Florian was not spared. At the same time, Fulk III Nerra spoiled a good relationship with Herbert I, the earl of Maine, nicknamed Wake up the Dog. In 1025, as Ademar Shabansky narrates about, he lured the Count of Maine into a trap. Fulk III Nerra invited him to settle disputes in Saint, and as soon as Herbert I arrived at the meeting place, he immediately seized him. Count Anjou also tried to capture Countess Maine, but in vain. After two years in captivity at the Count of Anjou, during which Herbert I suffered many humiliations, he was able to regain his freedom.
He founded several religious houses, among them the abbeys of Beaulieu, near Loches (с 1007), of Saint-Nicholas at Angers (1020) and of Ronceray at Angers (1028), and, in order to expiate his crimes of violence, made three pilgrimages to the Holy Land (in 1002-1003, c. 1008 and in 1039). On his return from the third of these journeys he died at Metz in Lorraine on the 21st of June 1040.
In Fulk III Nerra life, violence alternated with a subsequent repentance, the fruits of which became the building of churches and monasteries. The Chronicle of the Monastery of St. Albin in Angers says that on June 27, 992, he, together with Edom I, Count Blois, and Richard I Fearless, Duke of Normandy, defeated Conan I of Curve, the Duke of Brittany and Count Rennes under the Conqueror. During this battle, Conan I was killed. Soon after, Fulk III made a donation to the Church of Saint Mauritius in Angers "for the salvation of the soul of a sinner who caused the death of a large number of Christians in the Conqueror. " And after taking the Tour in 996, Fulk barefoot came to the monastery of St. Martin for repentance, imploring the saint to forgive him for putting an affront.
By his first marriage, with Elizabeth, daughter of Bouchard le Venerable, count of Vendome, he had a daughter, Adela, who married Boon of Nevers and transmitted to her children the countship of Vendome. Elizabeth having died in 1000, Fulk married Hildegarde of Lorraine, by whom he had a son, Geoffrey Martel (q. v. ), and a daughter Ermengarde, who married Geoffrey, count of Gatinais, and was the mother of Geoffrey " le Barbu " (the Bearded) and of Fulk " le Rechin ".
