The Understanding of Family in Medieval France: a Study of the Family of Count Fulk Réchin of Anjou

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The Understanding of Family in Medieval France: a Study of the Family of Count Fulk Réchin of Anjou Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Master's Theses Graduate College 4-2005 The Understanding of Family in Medieval France: A Study of the Family of Count Fulk Réchin of Anjou Sheila Clark Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses Recommended Citation Clark, Sheila, "The Understanding of Family in Medieval France: A Study of the Family of Count Fulk Réchin of Anjou" (2005). Master's Theses. 4107. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/4107 This Masters Thesis-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE UNDERSTANDING OFFAMIL YIN MEDIEVAL FRANCE: A STUDY OF THEFAMILY OF COUNTFULK RECHIN OF ANJO U by Sheila Clark A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate College in partial fulfillmentof the requirements of the Degreeof Master of Arts Department of History WesternMichigan University Kalamazoo, Michigan April2005 Copyright by Sheila Clark 2005 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank those people without whom this thesis would not have been possible. Dr. Judith Stone, Dr. Thomas Amos and Dr. Robert Berkhoferill for all the time spent reading the many draftsof this work and always taking the time to discuss my ideas and helping me form them in a cohesive manner. I would especially like to thank Dr. Amy Livingstone forher guidance and help securing documents fromFrance, which would never have been possible otherwise. Finally I would like to thank my parentsJay andJoan Clark and my brother Eric for their unending encouragement and belief that everything is possible. Sheila Clark 11 THE UNDERSTANDING OF F AMILYIN MEDIEVAL FRANCE: A STUDY OF THE FAMILY OF COUNT FULK RECHIN OF ANJOU Sheila Clark, M.A. WesternMichigan University, 2005 This study will reconstruct Count Fulk Rechin of Anjou's (1068-1109) understanding of his family by using a narrative genealogy he composed and comparing it with witness lists and bequests he made in charters. Thus, it will determine who he considered members of his family for both legal and polemical purposes. This study will compare Fulk's understanding of family with other eleventh- and twelfth-century ideas of the aristocratic family, as well as historians' models of the medieval family. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.................. ................................................................... 11 TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS............................................................................ V CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION...................................................................................... 1 II. NARRATIVEGENEALO GIES: SNAPSHOTS OF FAMILY CONSTRUCTION?................................................................................... 11 ID. FULK'S FAMILY INTHE CHARTERS.................................................. 32 IV. FAMILIESOF THE PAST ....................................................................... 49 V. CONCLUSION.......................................................................................... 72 APPENDICES A. GENEALOGIES........................................................................................ 80 Table 1 Fulk Rechin's Fanrily.................................................................... 81 Table 2 Fragmentum Historiae Andegavensis ........................................... 82 Table 3 Genealogia Comitum Buloniensium ............................................. 83 B. CHARTERS AND WITNESS LISTS....................................................... 85 Key to Charterson WitnessList .. .. ... .. ... ... .. .. .. .... .. .. .. .. .. ... .. ... ... .. .. .. 86 Chronological List of Charters................................................................... 89 Table 1 Witnesses To All ChartersInv olving Fulk Rechin ....................... 92 Table 2 Witnesses Who AppearWith Fulk Rechin And Geoffrey............ 106 lll TABLE OF CONTENTS - Continued APPENDICES Table 3 Witnesses Who AppearWith Fulk Rechin, Geoffrey And Fulk The Younger...................................................................................... 109 Table 4 Witnesses Who Appear With Fulk Rechin And His Wives......... 112 Table 5 Witnesses To ChartersIssued by Fulk Rechin But With No Other Family Members Present................................................................. 113 Table 6 WitnessesWho Appear in ChartersIssued By Fulk Rechin......... 122 BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................................................................................. 130 lV TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS APM Lambert. Genealogia antecessourm parentummeorum, MGH SS 14. Hanover: KrausReprint Corporation 1963. CB Genealogia comitum Bulontensium. Edited by L. C. Bethmann in MGH SS 9:300-301. Hanover: Karus Reprint Corporation, 1963. cc Croniques Catalanes. Institute d'estudis catalans, Eds. Barcelona: Institute d' estudis catalanes,1925. CSAA Abbaye de Saint-Aubin d'Angers. Cartulraire de l'Abbayede Saint­ Aubin d'Angers. 3 vols. Paris: Picard, 1903. CSB Abbaye Saint-Serge et Saint-Bach d' Angers. Cartulaire de l'Abbaye Saint-Serge et Saint-Bach d'Angers. 2 vols. CV Abbaye de la Trinite. Cartulaire de l 'AbbayeCardinale de la Trinite de Vendome. 4 Vols. Paris: Picard 1893. FHA Fulk Rechin, "Fragmentum historiae andegavensis." In Chroniques des comtes d'Anjou et des seigneurs d'Ambrose. Edited by Louis Halphen and Rene Poupardin. Paris:Societe de l'Ecole des Chartes, 1913. HCG Lambert of Ardres. Lamberti Ardensis histoira comitum Ghisnensium Edited by Johnann Heller. In MGH SS 24:550-642. Hanover: Karus Reprint Corporation, 1963. MGH Monumenta Germaniae historica ss Script ores V CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The modem European idea of family generally emphasizes the nuclear family of parents andchildren surrounded by a larger number of extended kin. This family construction is limited both horizontally, extending no furtherthan firstor perhaps second cousins in the same generation, and vertically, not going back much beyond grandparents in previous generations. This modem European concept is in sharp contrast to how aristocraticfamilies in eleventh- and twelfth- century France viewed themselves. By the millennium, the Catholic Church forbidmarriage within seven degrees of kinship because of unease aboutincest and this had the effectof limiting the property and power one family could control in any particular area or region. 1 This new doctrine forcednoble families to know both who their distant cousins were and also their ancestors going back many generations. Just who medieval families considered their membersinfluenced almost everything that families did as groups as well as separate persons, including marriage choices, political alliances, wars, and the decision of which monasteries to enter and support. Thereforeit is important for scholarsto understandmedieval persons ideas of family or to whom they considered themselves related to better understand the events of the past. The position of persons within each aristocratic family oftendepended on what their status was when they firstentered the family. But thisstatus changed over time as the family moved through the continuous cycle of marriages, births and deaths. While every member of a familywho reached adulthood experienced these 1 Jack Goody, The European Family:An Historico-Anthropo/ogica/ Essay,(Oxford: Blackwell Publishers,2000), 58-62. Jack Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe, changes, women changed roles most dramatically throughout their lifetimes. Children often had the least controlover their lives. As young boys and girls reached the age of maturity, however, their paths separated. While young boys and unmarried men were usually subject to the head of the household (fathers, uncles, even older brothers,) once they were married they oftenassumed a dominant position within the household and were in complete control over their own lives, as well as the lives of other members of their household. Younger sons who did not inherit a part of the family patrimony or who did not marry anheiress, and thereby control property of their own, sometimes continued to be subject to the same lack of control that came fromliving within someone else's household. However, women, once married, entered their husband's household, where his mother and possibly sisters may have taken on the duties of running the household. By the time a women had borne children, her status was oftenelevated fromnot merely wife, but also mother to the heir of the household. If a woman had not beenfully accepted as a member of the family by her husband's relatives, she became the very essence of family for her son.2 Women probably experienced the most freedomand control over their lives in widowhood. Once widowed they could oftendecide forthemselves who they would marry if they wished to marry at all. Widows frequentlycontrolled property and could often disperse it as they wished. Thus, over her life cycle, a women's status and freedomeventually to increased or had the potential to. Medieval scholarsstudying the aristocratic family and theplace of women within it are oftenlimited by the sources to researching the way women were viewed (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1983), 117. 2 Constance BrittainBouchard, "Those of MyBlood" ConstructingNoble Families in Medieval 2 by men. Rarely is a scholar able to hear directly froma woman about how
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