Angers in the context of Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd

The Angevin Empire (/ˈændʒɪvɪn/; French: Empire Plantagenêt) was the collection of territories held by the House of Plantagenet during the 12th and 13th centuries, when they ruled over an area covering roughly all of present-day England, half of France, and parts of Ireland and Wales, and claiming overlordship and some influence over the remaining parts of Wales, Scotland and Ireland. It may be described as an early example of a composite monarchy. The empire was established by Henry II of England, who succeeded his father Geoffrey as duke of Normandy and count of Anjou (from the latter of which the term Angevin is derived). Henry married Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152, acquiring the Duchy of Aquitaine, and inherited his mother Empress Matilda's claim to the English throne, succeeding his rival Stephen in 1154. Although their title of highest rank came from the Kingdom of England, the Plantagenets held court primarily on the continent at Angers in Anjou and at Chinon in Touraine.

The influence and power of the Angevin kings of England brought them into conflict with the kings of France of the House of Capet, to whom they also owed feudal homage for their French possessions, bringing in a period of rivalry between the dynasties. Despite the extent of Angevin rule, Henry's son King John was defeated in the Anglo-French War (1213–1214) by Philip II of France following the Battle of Bouvines. John lost control of most of his continental possessions, apart from Guyenne and Gascony in southern Aquitaine. This defeat set the scene for further conflicts between England and France, leading up to the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453), in which the Plantagenets re-established dominion over much of western, central, and northern France before losing their possessions again, this time permanently.

The County of Anjou (UK: /ˈɒ̃ʒuː, ˈæ̃ʒuː/, US: /ɒ̃ˈʒuː, ˈæn(d)ʒuː, ˈɑːnʒuː/; French: [ɑ̃ʒu]; Latin: Andegavia) was a French county that was the predecessor to the Duchy of Anjou. Its capital was Angers, and its area was roughly co-extensive with the diocese of Angers. Anjou was bordered by Brittany to the west, Maine to the north, Touraine to the east and Poitou to the south. Its 12th-century Count Geoffrey created the nucleus of what became the Angevin Empire. The adjectival form is Angevin, and inhabitants of Anjou are known as Angevins. In 1360, the county was raised into the Duchy of Anjou within the Kingdom of France. This duchy was later absorbed into the French royal domain in 1482, and remained a province of the kingdom until 1790.

Sarthe (French pronunciation: [saʁt] ) is a department of the French region of Pays de la Loire, and the province of Maine, situated in the Grand-Ouest of the country. It is named after the river Sarthe, which flows from east of Le Mans to just north of Angers. It had a population of 566,412 in 2019.

The War in the Vendée (French: Guerre de Vendée [ɡɛʁ də vɑ̃de]) was a counter-revolutionary insurrection that took place in the Vendée region of France from 1793 to 1796, during the French Revolution. The Vendée is a coastal region, located immediately south of the river Loire in western France. Initially, the revolt was similar to the 14th-century Jacquerie peasant uprising, but the Vendée quickly became counter-revolutionary and Royalist. The revolt was comparable to the Chouannerie, which took place concurrently (1794–1800) in the area north of the Loire.

While elsewhere in France the revolts against the levée en masse were repressed, an insurgent territory, called the Vendée militaire by historians, formed south of the Loire-Inférieure (Brittany), south-west of Maine-et-Loire (Anjou), north of Vendée and north-west of Deux-Sèvres (Poitou). Gradually referred to as the "Vendeans", the insurgents established in April a "Catholic and Royal Army" which won a succession of victories in the spring and summer of 1793. The rebels briefly overran the towns of Fontenay-le-Comte, Thouars, Saumur and Angers, but were halted at the Battle of Nantes.

Theuderic II (also spelled Theuderich, Theoderic or Theodoric; in French, Thierry) (c. 587–613), king of Burgundy (595–613) and Austrasia (612–613), was the second son of Childebert II. At his father's death in 595, he received Guntram's kingdom of Burgundy, with its capital at Orléans, while his elder brother, Theudebert II, received their father's kingdom of Austrasia, with its capital at Metz. He also received the lordship of the cities (civitates) of Toulouse, Agen, Nantes, Angers, Saintes, Angoulême, Périgueux, Blois, Chartres, and Le Mans. During his minority, and later, he reigned under the guidance of his grandmother Brunhilda, evicted from Austrasia by his brother Theudebert II.

In 596, Clotaire II, king of Neustria, and Fredegund, Clotaire's mother, took Paris, which was supposed to be held in common. Fredegund, then her son's regent, sent a force to Laffaux and the armies of Theudebert and Theuderic were defeated.

Guillaume Poyet (c. 1473 – April 1548) was a French magistrate born in Angers. After practising successfully as a barrister at Angers and Paris, he was instructed by Louise of Savoy, mother of the king Francis I, to uphold her rights against the constable de Bourbon in 1521. This was the beginning of his fortunes. Through the influence of the queen-mother he obtained the posts of advocate-general (1530) and president of the parliament of Paris (1534), and became chancellor of France in 1538.

He was responsible for the legal reform contained in the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts (1539), the object of which was to shorten procedure. This ordered the keeping of registers of baptisms and deaths, and enjoined the exclusive use of the French language in legal procedure. With the constable de Montmorency he organized an intrigue to ruin Admiral Chabot, and procured his condemnation in 1541; but after the admiral was pardoned, Poyet was himself thrown into prison, deprived of his offices, and sentenced to a fine of 100,000 livres.

The Maine (French pronunciation: [mɛːn] ) is a river, a tributary of the Loire, 11.5 km (7.1 mi) long, in the Maine-et-Loire département in France.

It is formed by the confluence of the Mayenne and Sarthe rivers north of Angers. It flows through this city and joins the Loire southwest of Angers.

The Duchy of Anjou (French: [ɑ̃ʒu] ; UK: /ˈɒ̃ʒuː, ˈæ̃ʒuː/, US: /ɒ̃ˈʒuː, ˈæn(d)ʒuː, ˈɑːnʒuː/; Latin: Andegavia) was a French province straddling the lower Loire. Its capital was Angers, and its area was roughly co-extensive with the diocese of Angers. Anjou was bordered by Brittany to the west, Maine to the north, Touraine to the east and Poitou to the south. The adjectival form is Angevin, and inhabitants of Anjou are known as Angevins. In 1482, the duchy became part of the Kingdom of France and then remained a province of the Kingdom under the name of the Duchy of Anjou. After the decree dividing France into departments in 1791, the province was disestablished and split into six new départements. The majority of its area formed the new Maine-et-Loire department and its remaining area split between the departments of Deux-Sèvres, Indre-et-Loire, Loire-Atlantique, Sarthe, and Vienne.

The Archdiocese of Tours (Latin: Archidioecesis Turonensis; French: Archidiocèse de Tours) is a Latin Church archdiocese of the Catholic Church in France. The archdiocese has roots that go back to the 3rd century, while the formal erection of the diocese dates from the 5th century.

The ecclesiastical province of Tours corresponds with the late Roman province of Tertia Lugdunensis. During Breton independence the see of Dol briefly exercised metropolitical functions (mainly tenth century). In 1859 the Breton dioceses except that of Nantes were constituted into a province of Rennes. Tours kept its historic suffragans of Le Mans, Angers together with Nantes and a newly constituted Diocese of Laval. In 2002 Tours lost all connection with its historic province, all its previous suffragans depending henceforth on an expanded province of Rennes (corresponding to the Brittany and Pays de la Loire administrative regions). Tours since 2002 has become the ecclesiastical metropolis of the Centre administrative region.

The Diocese of Angers (Latin: Dioecesis Andegavensis; French: Diocèse d'Angers) is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in France. The episcopal see is located in Angers Cathedral in the city of Angers. The diocese extends over the entire department of Maine-et-Loire.

It was a suffragan see of the Archdiocese of Tours under the old regime as well as under the Concordat. Since the general reorganization of the French hierarchy of 8 December 2002, the diocese is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Rennes, Dol, and Saint-Malo.

Fulk III (c. 970 – 21 June 1040), known as Fulk the Black or Fulk Nerra Old French: Foulque Nerra), was an early count of Anjou , a ruthless man who was, however, celebrated as one of the first great builders of medieval castles. It is estimated Fulk constructed approximately 100 castles as well as abbeys throughout the Loire Valley. He fought successive wars with neighbors in Brittany, Blois, Poitou and Aquitaine and made four pilgrimages to Jerusalem during the course of his life. He had two wives and three children.

Fulk was a natural horseman and fearsome warrior with a keen sense of military strategy that bested most of his opponents. He was allied with the goals and aims of the Capetians against the dissipated Carolingians of his era. With his county seat at Angers, Fulk's bitter enemy was Odo II of Blois, his neighbor 128 km east along the Loire river, at Tours. The two men traded towns, followers and insults throughout their lives.

Maine-et-Loire (French pronunciation: [mɛn e lwaʁ] ) is a department in the Loire Valley in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France. It is named after the two rivers, Maine and the Loire. It borders Mayenne and Sarthe to the north, Loire-Atlantique to the west, Indre-et-Loire to the east, Vienne and Deux-Sèvres to the south, Vendée to the south-west, and Ille-et-Vilaine to the north-west. Its prefecture is Angers; its subprefectures are Cholet, Saumur and Segré-en-Anjou Bleu. Maine-et-Loire had a population of 818,273 in 2019.

The Château d'Angers is a castle in the city of Angers in the Loire Valley, in the département of Maine-et-Loire, in France. Founded in the 9th century by the Counts of Anjou, it was expanded to its current size in the 13th century. It is located overhanging the River Maine. It is a listed historical monument since 1875. Now open to the public, the Château d'Angers is home of the Apocalypse Tapestry.

Angers Cathedral (French: Cathédrale Saint-Maurice d'Angers) is a Catholic church dedicated to Saint Maurice in Angers, France. It is the seat of the Bishops of Angers.

Built between the 11th and 16th centuries, it is known for its mixture of Romanesque and Gothic architecture, and its ornate Baroque altar and sculpture. It also has an extensive collection of stained-glass windows, including the transept's window of Saint Julian, considered to be a masterpiece of French 13th-century glasswork as a national monument of France.

The Communauté urbaine Angers Loire Métropole is the communauté urbaine, an intercommunal structure, centred on the city of Angers. It is located in the Maine-et-Loire department, in the Pays de la Loire region, western France. It was created in January 2016, replacing the previous Communauté d'agglomération d'Angers Loire Métropole. It was expanded with the commune of Loire-Authion in January 2018. Its area is 666.7 km. Its population was 299,476 in 2018, of which 154,508 in Angers proper.

Jean Bondol, also known as Jean de Bruges, Jean Boudolf, or Jan Baudolf, was a Flemish artist who became a court artist of Charles V of France in 1368. He is documented as active between 1368 and 1381.

He is best known for producing a number of designs for tapestries, of which the only documented survivals are the huge and very important Apocalypse Tapestry series now at Angers. He painted the illuminations for the Bible historiale de Jean de Vaudetar [fr], a translation of the Vulgate which was presented to Charles V by his valet de chambre Jehan Vaudetar. It is now in the Westreen Museum at the Hague. These illuminations were executed in the year 1371, a period when art in the Netherlands was making rapid advances beyond the conventionality of the early 14th century, and the work of Jean de Bruges is by no means behind that of his contemporaries.

The châteaux of the Loire Valley (French: châteaux de la Loire) are part of the architectural heritage of the historic towns of Amboise, Angers, Blois, Chinon, Montsoreau, Orléans, Saumur, and Tours along the river Loire in France. They illustrate Renaissance ideals of design in France.

The châteaux of the Loire Valley number over three hundred, ranging from practical fortified castles from the 10th century to splendid residences built half a millennium later. When the French kings began constructing their huge châteaux in the Loire Valley, the nobility, drawn to the seat of power, followed suit, attracting the finest architects and landscape designers. The châteaux and their surrounding gardens are cultural monuments which embody the ideals of the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Many of the châteaux were built on hilltops, such as the Château d'Amboise, while the only one built in the riverbed is the Château de Montsoreau. Many had exquisite churches on the grounds or within the château.