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62 further expansion by hammering its frontiers still further to the north and east. Geoffrey, William's contemporary and rival, is known to us by a striking characterization written by his nephew and successor and forming a typical bit of feudal biography:

My uncle Geoffrey became a knight in his father's lifetime and began his knighthood by wars against his neighbors, one against the Poitevins, whose count he captured at Mont Couër, and another against the people of Maine, whose count, named Herbert Bacon, he likewise took. He also carried on war against his own father, in the course of which he committed many evil deeds of which he afterward bitterly repented. After his father died on his return from Jerusalem, Geoffrey possessed his lands and the city of Angers, and fought Count Thibaud of Blois, son of Count Odo, and by gift of King Henry received the city of Tours, which led to another war with Count Thibaud, in the course of which, at a battle between Tours and Amboise, Thibaud was captured with a thousand of his knights. And so, besides the part of Touraine inherited from his father, he acquired Tours and the castles round about—Chinon, L'Ile-Bouchard, Châteaurenault, and Saint-Aignan. After this he had a war with William, count of the Normans, who later acquired the kingdom of England and was a magnificent king, and with the people of France and of Bourges, and with William count of Poitou and Aimeri viscount of Thouars and Hoel count of Nantes and the Breton counts of Rennes and with Hugh count of Maine, who had thrown off his fealty. Because of all these wars and the prowess he showed therein he was rightly called the Hammer, as one who hammered down his enemies.