TWO YEARS AFTER GEOFFREY'S ACCESSION TO THE DUCHY OF BRITTANY.TH...

1183, - CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS BRITTANY AND THE ANGEVINS PROVINCE AND EMPIRE 1158 1203 OCT 2000 PDF 1183, - CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS BRITTANY AND THE ANGEVINS PROVINCE AND EMPIRE 1158 1203 OCT 2000 PDF
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS BRITTANY AND THE ANGEVINS PROVINCE AND EMPIRE 1158 1203 OCT 2000 PDF
1183, two years after Geoffrey's accession to the duchy of Brittany.The county of Nantes was also treated differently from the rest ofBrittany, but for different reasons. Conan IV's claim to hereditary rightin respect of Nantes was dubious, and Henry II could match it with hisown claim to be the heir of his younger brother. Moreover, in 1158Conan seems to have yielded unconditionally to Henry II those parts ofthe county he had brie¯y occupied. Consequently, Henry II wasjusti®ed in not treating the county as Constance's maritagium orinheritance, and hence in not granting it to Geoffrey in 1181.Geoffrey had two possible grounds for claiming the county ofNantes. The ®rst is that it might have become part of Constance'sinheritance. The fate of Count HoeÈl after he left Nantes in 1156 isunknown, but he is not known to have had any legitimate issue, andwas in the company of Duke Conan IV in England probably in 1164.

19

If HoeÈl had died without legitimate issue, Constance, his great-niece,would have been his heiress. In view of the irregular manner in whichthe comital/ducal dynasty had been ousted from Nantes by theAngevins, HoeÈl's heir had at least an arguable claim to be reinstated

17

See J.C. Holt, `Feudal society and the family in early medieval England: II, Notions of

patrimony',

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

5th series, 33 (1983), 193±220, reprinted in

Colonial England, 1066±1215, London, 1997.

18

Pipe Roll 24 Henry II, p. 72.

19

BN ms fr. 22362, f. 7.

there. Even if this were not so, if in fact Henry II had designated Nantesas Geoffrey's portion from as early as 1158, prior to his betrothal toConstance, Geoffrey may have felt he had a moral right to possession ofthe county.When Henry II acquired the county of Nantes in 1158 he almostcertainly intended it as provision for Geoffrey. The association ofGeoffrey with Henry II's regime in Nantes, manifested by Geoffrey'sappearance at the Christmas court held there in 1169, indicates that,even after the settlement of 1166, Geoffrey was expected to becomecount of Nantes. At some point, however, Henry II decided againstgiving Geoffrey both the county of Nantes and the rest of Brittany. Thismay have been in the aftermath of the 1173 revolt, since in one versionof the treaty of Falaise, `Media' is expressly excluded from Geoffrey'sportion.

20

The king was under no obligation to give the county of Nantes toGeoffrey and Constance on their marriage, and it seems to me that hedid not. This decision may have surprised contemporaries. A charterconcerning property of Fontevraud in the county of Nantes, dated