Anjou

Anjou, a former province in the NW. of France, of about 3500 sq. m. in extent, now forming the department of Maine-et-Loire, and small parts of the departments of Indre-et-Loire, Mayenne, and Sarthe. It lies on both sides of the lower course of the Loire, where it receives the Maine. Its capital was Angers (Lat. Andegavum). The ancient inhabitants of Anjou were the Andegavi, who long and resolutely resisted the Roman arms. The first Count of Anjou was Fulk the Red, who was made count for his services against the North- men in the 9th century. The male line of the ancient Counts of Anjou having become extinct in 1060, their title and possessions passed by the female line to the powerful House of Gâtinais; and from one of this family, Geoffrey V., Count of Anjou, sprung the Angevin house of English kings, usually called Plantagenets, the last of whom was Richard II. Geoffrey conquered the greater part of Normandy, assumed the title of duke, and in 1127 married Matilda, the daughter of Henry I. of England, and widow of the Emperor Henry V. Through her, his son inherited the English throne, which he ascended in 1154 as Henry II. Anjou now became one of the possessions of the kings of England; but in 1205 the French acquired it by fortune of war; and it was bestowed as a fief upon Philip, the son of Louis VIII., and afterwards upon his brother Charles, who became the founder of that house of Anjou which gave kings to Naples and Sicily. Charles II. of Naples gave Anjou to his daughter Margaret on her marriage with Charles of Valois, the son of Philip IV. Her son ascended the throne of France as Philip VI. in 1328. King John in 1360 made Anjou a duchy, and gave it to his son Louis, and on his succeeding to the crown of Naples, it remained a possession of the kings of Naples till the overthrow of that dynasty under René II., when Louis XI. permanently annexed it to the French crown (1484). Subsequently it gave merely an honorary title to princes of the royal family—as, for example, the grandson of Louis XIV., who became Philip V. of Spain. Anjou was united with England for a short time during the reigns of Henry V. and Henry VI.—the latter king ceding it finally in 1444.