Fulk Nerra

I just started a history of The Crusades, by Thomas Asbridge. It's off to a raring start, setting the pre-Crusades scene with the tale of Fulk Nerra:

In the year 1000 , the county of Anjou (in west-central France) was ruled by Fulk Nerra (987–1040), a brutal and rapacious warlord. Fulk spent most of his fifty-three years in power locked in near-constant struggle: fighting on every front to retain control of his unruly county; scheming to preserve his independence from the feeble French monarchy; and preying upon his neighbors in search of land and plunder. He was a man accustomed to violence, both on and off the battlefield—capable of burning his wife at the stake for adultery and of orchestrating the ruthless murder of a royal courtier.

But for all the blood on his hands, Fulk was also a committed Christian—one who recognised that his brutish ways were, by the tenets of his faith, inherently sinful, and thus might lead to his eternal damnation. The count himself admitted in a letter that he had 'caused a great deal of bloodshed in various battles' and was therefore 'terrified by the fear of Hell'. In the hope of purifying his soul, he made three pilgrimages to Jerusalem, more than 2,000 miles away. On the last of these journeys, now an old man, Fulk was said to have been led naked to the Holy Sepulchre--the site of Jesus' death and resurrection—with a leash around his neck, being beaten by his servant while he begged Christ for forgiveness.

While the story is accessible in a "Johnny Depp-could-play-Fulk-Nerra-in-the-movie" way, I've been mulling over Fulk's life and excesses for days. The violence, even evil; the companion remorse, sense of culpability, and epic and increasingly desperate acts of penitence. The first pilgrimage didn't mend Fulk's ways; and the second pilgrimage didn't mend Fulk's ways; it's so "us" that there is a third pilgrimage.

Engraving by Gustave Doré for the Bibliotheque des Croisades.