ABSTRACT
It is virtually impossible to identify with precision the genealogical origins of the family of Laval beyond the start of the eleventh century. The first text to mention explicitly a Guy, lord of Laval, was written in the mid-eleventh century and gives him the title of founder of the stronghold of Laval. Over the centuries many intricate and undoubtedly fictitious genealogies linked the family to Charlemagne. According to the work of Jean Daniel at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the town of Laval had already been a place of note by the time the Romans invaded and the name and arms had been bestowed on its inhabitants by Julius Caesar himself ‘pour leur grand vaillantise’.1 Two centuries later, authors still insisted that the counts were descended from a brother of Pepin the Short.2 The Chronologie historique des sires, puis comtes de Laval gives a more plausible version: the town was founded after 900 and its first lord was named Geoffroi-Guy. He figured in a document dated 1002 in which he was given the title ‘potentissimum viru Gaufridum Guidonem, dominum de Valle’.3
