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Count Geoffrey Plantagenet's sudden death in September 1151 came at a most inopportune time for his eighteen-year-old son, Henry. Having just concluded a peace with their French overlord in which Henry's recent investiture with Normandy was formally recognized by Louis VII, father and son were about to launch a combined Angevin-Norman invasion of England. This invasion, it was hoped, would finally settle the issue of the English succession, reuniting the Anglo-Norman state under Henry l's intended heir. When this long-awaited goal was achieved, the young king/duke would rule over England and Normandy, while his father continued in the governance of Anjou. But the Count's illness and impending death brought forth a more immediate and unexpected issue: the Angevin succession.

During the last half of the twelfth century the kings of England ruled a vast constellation of lands stretching from Ireland to the Mediterranean, known traditionally, if not quite accurately, as the “Angevin Empire.” While the empire lasted, its rulers were the richest and strongest in Christendom. When King John lost Normandy, Anjou, Maine and Touraine, he also lost much of his income and influence, and the kings of France became the great royal figures of the thirteenth century. It is the purpose of this paper to explore the origins of the Angevin empire, and in particular the union of its two chief components — the Anglo-Norman state and the county of Anjou. Did the empire come about by accident or by political design? And if by design, who was its architect? Was it Henry I, who arranged the crucial marriage between his daughter Maud and Geoffrey, heir to Anjou? Was it Geoffrey, or Maud? Or was it their son, Henry Plantagenet — the ultimate beneficiary of the marriage?At first glance, the empire would seem to have been conceived in the calculating mind of Henry I, who could hardly have failed to grasp the implications of a marriage joining the Anglo-Norman heiress to the Angevin heir. Indeed, many treatments of the subject, both old and recent, have suggested that the Angevin empire arose from King Henry I's “immensely grandiose designs” to absorb Anjou. But did Henry I have any such desire, or any such intention? The question can only be answered after a careful analysis of Henry I's diplomacy, both in its general contours and in its relation to Anjou.

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