Langeais, Foulque Nerra Et Les Chateaux Des Pays de Loire, de l'An Mil a la Premiere Croisade

It has been said and repeated since the 19th century that Langeais (France), in the western part of Touraine and near Anjou, is the oldest stone-built component of a castle north of the Loire. This assertion is as difficult to prove as it is to refute, and this was not, indeed, the purpose of the conference held in Langeais, on the initiative of the Jacques Siegfried Foundation (Institut de France), in October 2021. More broadly, the intention was for historians and medieval archaeologists to reconsider the new structural techniques employed in western France around the year 1000, and the introduction of stone-built castles equipped with great towers, soon to be known as donjons. The latter is linked to the reordering of land tenure at the beginning of the 11th century, accompanied by the emergence of a new military aristocracy, that of the lords chatelains. In the context of these social transformations in the Loire region, the conference awarded particular prominence to Foulque Nerra, Count of Anjou, who, for half a century, made his mark on the political life of early Capetian France and became, from the 16th century onwards, an exemplar of the early days of French feudal society.