Angers, Loire Valley

Once, Angers was one of the most important places in France. Known as Anjou during the medieval period, this city was home to the Angevins. A powerful clan, they claimed dominion over England, bits of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and a vast swathe of territory in France. At the height of its power, under Henry II and Queen Eleanor, the Angevin Empire (as it’s now known) ruled more of France than the king of France himself.

The stark castle brings you straight back to the Middle Ages. It’s huge, with seventeen semicircular towers of black stone dotting the thick walls, with striking bands of white running along them. It looks like the home of a warrior and a conqueror, and that’s just what it was.

Henry II came to the English throne after a long, bloody and very complicated period of civil war known today as the Anarchy. Henry was king of England, but was in every way French, and his family home was here, in Angers. Through inheritance and warfare, Henry managed to secure a great deal of territory in northwest France, including most of the Loire Valley.

In 1152, Henry married Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor was around 30, but was already an experienced politician, as well as phenomenally wealthy. She had been Duchess of the Aquitaine, the richest province of France, since she was 15 years old, which she ruled as an independent realm. Previously, she was married to the French king, Louis VII, but the two had clashed over the independence of her Duchy. Eventually, the marriage broke down, and the couple were able to get an annulment from the Pope as they were cousins by birth.

Eleanor left the French court immediately and took all her riches with her. She was accosted no less than four times by noblemen attempting to kidnap her and force a marriage before she reached Normandy, where she accepted Henry’s proposal (although she was more closely related to him than Louis). With the marriage (and the Aquitaine, which he ruled jointly with Eleanor), Henry became one of the most powerful rulers in Europe.

Eleanor and Henry had three sons, Richard, John and Henry, and all three would become kings of England. Young Henry would rule first alongside his father in the latter part of his reign. Then Richard, now known as the Lionheart, who spent most of his reign away fighting in the Crusades. And finally John, who is remembered for the signing of Magna Carta in 1215, and being the villain in the Robin Hood legends.

My next stop is the Tapestry of the Apocalypse, housed in a museum inside Angers’ castle keep. This is the world's oldest and largest medieval narrative tapestry. It depicts the story of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation in comic book style panels (in fact, this is where we get the word ‘cartoon’ from - referring to the panel placed behind the loom by tapestry weavers). Spread over six tapestries and 90 scenes, it tells a harrowing tale featuring the eagle of Doom soaring above destroyed cities, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, led by Death, a grinning, decaying corpse.

Before oil painting, tapestry was the most prestigious visual art in Europe. Tapestries were valued for their beauty, as insulation for cold castle halls, and because they were really expensive. From the 1300s to the 1700s, tapestry workshops began cropping up in centres such as Paris and Brussels, producing commissioned pieces for royal courts. A large tapestry would take years to create, with an estimated eighty person-years of effort going into the Tapestry of the Apocalypse. Luckily, they were made by large teams led by a ‘master’ and usually from the designs of a court artist under the patronage of the commissioner. 

In the medieval era, royal courts moved from place to place. Having a large, portable tapestry meant that any temporary residence could be lent kingly dignity. Later, during the French Revolution, the Jacobins recognised their symbolic power and destroyed many of them. The Tapestry of the Apocalypse was cut into pieces and used as floor mats and to protect orange trees from frost. Luckily, later historians were able to recover most of it for study. 

I schlep up the winding staircases to the top of one of the castle’s towers and look over the Loire. I imagine Eleanor and Henry walking these battlements together after their marriage. It's a beautiful view, but for them, I doubt it was a particularly romantic scene. This was a marriage of convenience, and the two were probably already plotting the other’s downfall. But we’ll have to wait until we reach Chinon before we wrap up the tale of these two medieval titans.