Background
Geoffrey was a son of Fulk"s second wife, Ermengard of Bourbon. His father tried to disinherit him in favour of Fulk the Younger, his son by his fourth wife, Bertrada of Montfort.
Bishop of Angers Martellus consul
Geoffrey was a son of Fulk"s second wife, Ermengard of Bourbon. His father tried to disinherit him in favour of Fulk the Younger, his son by his fourth wife, Bertrada of Montfort.
Fulk, by then an old man, had previously delegated much of his authority to Geoffrey. He allied with Renaud de Martigné, Bishop of Angers, against the baron Maurice of Craon. An anonymous poem by a scholar or cleric addressed to a certain Philip, probably Philip of Melun, son of Philip I of France through his dalliance with Bertrada, is an encomium of a "Count Martel" (Martellus consul), probably Geoffrey IV. The poem is didactic and upholds the count, only named as Martel, as an exemplar of good rulership.
The last lines offer hope that he may "long prosper", and so must have been written during the brief period of his rule in Anjou.
Geoffrey was besieging a rebellious baron in the castle of Candé when, on 19 May 1106, he was struck and killed by an arrow while going to negotiations. The Chronica de gestis consulum andegavorum attributed this assassination to Fulk and Bertrada, and praised the late count as "an admirable man, distinguished in justice, a cultivator or the whole of goodness, who was a terror to all his enemies." The Annales vindocinenses call him "a subduer and conqueror of tyrants, protector and defender of churches.".