Gerberge GerbergeWife of Foulques II, count of Anjou.
No known record mentions Gerberge during her lifetime. In charters of March 966 and 19 June 966, Gaufridus, comes Andegavorum, mentions his brother abbot Widdo, father Fulco and mother Gerberga [Cart. S.-Aubin 1: 268-9, 4-7], and in a charter of 970, count Gaufridus mentions his father Fulco and mother Gerberga [Cart. S.-Aubin 1: 38-9].
Date of birth: Unknown.
Place of birth: Unknown.
Date of death: Before September 958, probably before 953.
Place of
death: Unknown.
Not long after the death of Alain
II Barbetorte of Bretagne (Brittany) in 952, Foulques II of Anjou
married the widow of Alain [Chron. Nantes, c. 37 (pp. 107-8)],
and Gerberge was certainly deceased by that time. The second
marriage of Foulques took place before September 958, when
Foulques was present at an assembly of Breton leaders at Angers
[Morice (1742) 1: 346-7].
Father: Unknown.
Mother: Unknown.
For conjectured origins, see the Commentary
section.
Spouse: Foulques II
"le Bon", d. 958×960, count of Anjou, after
941-958×960.
See the page of Foulques II for details.
Children:
Geoffroy I "Grisegonelle", d. 987, count of Anjou;
m. (1) Adèle, living 6 March 974, daughter of Robert I, count of Troyes.
m. (2) Adélaïde, living 999, widow of Lambert, count of Chalon.
Guy, living
13 April 993, d. 8 February 994×6, abbot of Cormery, Villeloin,
Ferrière, and Saint-Aubin; bishop of Le Puy, 976-994×6.
Adélaïde alias Blanche, d. 1026;
m. (1) Étienne de Brioude, fl. 936-957, d.
prob. 970×5;
m. (2) Raymond de Toulouse;
m. (3) ca. 980, Louis V, d. 21 May 987, king of
France, 986-7;
m. (4) Guillaume
I (or II), d. aft. 29 August
993, marquis of Provence.
Probable additional daughter:
Adèle;
m. Gautier I, count of Valois, Vexin, and
Amiens.
Conjectured father (possible): Geoffroy (I), fl. 933-941, count [of
Gâtinais?]; count of Nevers?; viscount of Orléans?
Conjectured mother (possible): Ava, fl. 936-40.
In an act of 933 at Auxerre, a count
Geoffroy, a vassal of king Raoul, is mentioned in connection with
60 manses in the comitatus of Gâtinais ["...
Gauzfredus comes ... cum mansis LX ex Wastinensi comitatu, ...
Actum Autissiodoro." RHF 9: 579; Settipani (1997), 233,
gives the date 935]. In November 941, a count Geoffroy,
presumably the same man, witnesses a donation of land in
Gâtinais to Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire ["... in
Guastinensi pago ... Sig. Gauzfredi comitis ..." Cart.
Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, 1: 121-2 (#47)]. Although Geoffroy
appears in both cases with regard to land in Gâtinais, he is not
specifically called count of Gâtinais. His appearance in 933 in
an act at Auxerre suggests a possible Burgundian connection.
Thus, it has been suggested that this count Geoffroy was the same
person as the count Geoffroy who appears at Nevers with his wife
Ava on 8 April 936 ["... ego, in Dei nomine, Gauzfredus,
disponente Deo comes, et uxor mea Ava, ... Signum Gauzfredi
comitis, et signum Avane, uxoris ejus, ... Actum Nivernis
civitate publice ..." Cart. Cluny, 1: 435 (#446)]. This
count also appears in a charter of June 936 ["... ego
Gauzfredus, ..., et uxor mea Ava, ... Signum Gauzfredi comitis,
et signum Avæ, uxoris ejus, ..." Cart. Cluny, 1: 438-9
(#449)] and in one of July & September 940 with his wife Ava
and brother Gauzbert ["ego, in Dei nomine, Gauzfredus
comes et conjux mea Ava, ... pro remedio animarum nostrarum et
fratris mei Gauzberti, ... Signum Gauzfredi commitis, et Ave,
uxoris ejus, ..." Cart. Cluny, 1: 496-8 (#511)]. This
is probably also the count Geoffroy who appears in a charter of
Liétaud, count of Mâcon on 12 April 935 ["S. Gaufredi
comitis." Cart. Cluny, 1: 421 (#432), the exact date
might not be correct]. He has also been identified with the
Geoffroy, viscount of Orléans who appears in May 942 (or 939?)
in a charter of Hugues le Grand for Saint-Julien de Tours ["S.
Gaufredi Aurelianensium vicecomitis. ... Data mense maio ... anno
scilicet Dominicæ incarnationis DCCCCXLIIº sive anno tertio
regnante Hludovico rege." Rec. Chron. Touraine, 234;
also RHF 9: 723, dating it to May 939, with the words "anno
scilicet Dominicæ incarnationis DCCCCXLIIº sive"
missing].
Gerberge was placed as a daughter of Geoffroy by Maurice Chaume in 1925 [Chaume (1925), 1: 533 (table 3), with a "solid" line on the table, but no documentation]. Christian Settipani, in a detailed discussion of Gerberge's ancestry, reached the same conclusion [Settipani (1997), 226-247]. The primary motivation for this conjecture is onomastic, and concerns the name Geoffroy. The son and heir of Foulques II and Gerberge had this name, which is not known to have been present in the family of Foulques. Thus, the argument goes, the name Geoffroy must have been present in Gerberge's family, and Settipani suggests that research on Gerberge's family should begin with the hypothesis that her father was named Geoffroy [Settipani (1997), 228]. The case is perhaps overstated, since it is difficult to rule out the possibility that the name Geoffroy appeared somewhere in the family of Foulques (say, in undocumented sons who died young), and Geoffroy I Grisegonelle may have been named after some relative other than a grandfather. Nevertheless, given the apparent connections of Geoffroy I Grisegonelle and his family in Gâtinais [see, e.g., Guillot (1972), 3-4], the conjecture that he was a maternal grandson of Geoffroy (I), apparent count of Gâtinais, is more plausible than the other conjectures that have been made about Gerberge's origins.
Conjectured father (unlikely): Ratburn I, fl. 912-945, viscount of
Vienne.
Conjectured mother (unlikely): Gerberge,
daughter of Hector.
Ratburn I appears as viscount on several occasions between 912
and 945, in the latter year with his wife Walda ["...
ego, in Dei nomine, Ratburnus vicecomis et uxsor sua Vualda, ..."
Cart. Cluny, 1: 625 (#671)]. He appears to have been the father
by an earlier marriage of Ratburn II, who on 22 September 976
mentions his grandfather Hector, mother Gerberge, and brother
bishop Hector ["... ego Ratburnus, ... per
commendationem avi mei Hectori et genetricis mee Girbergie et
fratrem meum Hectorum, episcopum, ..." Cart. Cluny, 2:
485 (#1429); for the viscounts of Vienne, see Poupardin (1901),
351-6 (Appendice IX); Settipani (1997), 245-7]. Bernard
Bachrach's conjecture that Ratburn and Gerberge were the parents
of Gerberge, wife of Foulques II, is based primarily on the name
Gerberge, but also partly on the fact that by the middle of the
tenth century, the dynasty of Anjou was showing some Burgundian
connections [Bachrach (1986)]. Bachrach also suggested that
Gerberge's granddaughter Ermengarde, daughter of
Geoffroy I Grisegonelle, was named after Ratburn I's apparent
mother Ermengarde [Bachrach (1986), 7, who incorrectly identifies
Geoffroy's daughter Ermengarde with his other daughter Gerberge].
However, Settipani has pointed out that Ermengarde could have
been named after her mother Adèle's maternal grandmother Ermengarde, wife of Giselbert of Burgundy (whose mother was also an Ermengarde) [Settipani (1997), 227-8]. Depending heavily on the
onomastic argument, with a rather weak geographical connection,
this conjecture is not very convincing.
Conjectured father (no
evidence - improbable):
Roubaud.
Conjectured brother
(no evidence - improbable): Boso, d.
after March 965, count of Arles.
[Mabille (1871), lxiv-lxv, no evidence
offered]
Bachrach (1986) = Bernard S. Bachrach, "Some Observations on the Origins of Countess Gerberga of the Angevins: an Essay in the Application of the Tellenbach-Werner Prosopographical Method", Medieval Prosopography 7.2 (1986): 1-23.
Cart. Cluny = A. Bernard & A. Bruel, Recueil des chartes de l'abbaye de Cluny, 6 vols., (Paris, 1876-1903).
Cart. S.-Aubin = Bertrand de Broussillon, Cartulaire de l'abbaye de Saint-Aubin d'Angers, 3 vols. (Angers, 1903).
Cart. S.-Benoît-sur-Loire = Maurice Prou & Alexandre Vidier, eds., Recueil des chartes de l'abbaye de Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire, 2 vols. (Paris, 1900-12).
Chron. Nantes = René Merlet, ed., La Chronique de Nantes (Paris, 1895).
Guillot (1972) = Olivier Guillot, Le Comte d'Anjou et son entourage au XIe siècle (Paris, 1972).
Mabille (1871) = Émile Mabille, Introduction au Chroniques des Comtes d'Anjou (Société de l'Histoire de France, vol. 155, Paris, 1871).
Morice (1742) = Dom Hyacinthe Morice, Memoires pour servir de preuves à l'histoire ecclésiastique et civile de Bretagne, 3 vols, (Paris, 1742).
Poupardin (1901) = René Poupardin, Le royaume de Provence sous les Carolingiens (Paris, 1901).
Rec. Chron. Touraine = André Salmon, ed., Recueil de Chroniques de Touraine (Tours, 1854).
RHF = Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France.
Settipani (1997) = Christian Settipani, "Les comtes d'Anjou et leur alliances aux Xe et XIe siècles", in K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, ed., Family Trees and the Roots of Politics (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1997): 211-267.
Compiled by Stewart Baldwin
First uploaded 29 May 2012.