Geoffrey (Mandeville) de Mandeville (abt. 1036 - abt. 1100)

Born about 1036 in Normandy, France

Husband of Adeliza (Balts) de Mandeville — married before 1061 in England

Descendants

Died about 1100 at about age 64 in Oxfordshire, England

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Biography

In modern scholarship Geoffrey is not considered one of the people who are known to have fought at Hastings, but he was made one of the most powerful tenants-in-chief by King William I.^[1]

Lands and titles

His lands in 1086 (Domesday Book) stretched from Essex and Suffolk on the east coast neat London, into the centre of the country.^[2]

He was made castellan of the Tower of London.^[3]

He built the castle of Pleshy, the seat of his family's barony, in the manor of High Easter.^[4]

His grandson Geoffrey II became Earl of Essex.^[5]

Surname and origins

In his own time he was referred to with spellings such as Magnavilla. Loyd concluded that his origins and surname lay in Manneville (modern Thil-Manneville postcode 76730) near Dieppe. He wrote:^[6]

The Historia Coenobii Mortui-maris states that earl William de Mandeville

gave to the abbey the church of ' Magnavilla ' of which he was the patron and that he was buried in the abbey. [footnote: Rec. Hist. France, xiv, 514. He is called ' comes Willelmus Mortuimaris,' an obvious scribal error for 'Magnaevillae.' There was no such person as earl William de Mortemer, and moreover William de Mandeville was in fact buried at Mortemer (Complete Peerage, new ed., v, 119).]

The place is identified by an entry in the pouillé of 1337: ' Tilia et Magnavilla—patronus abbas de Mortuomari.' [footnote: A. Longnon, Pouillés de la Province de Rouen, p. 32]

The above facts are of themselves sufficient, but the identification is confirmed by the fact that the Mandeville carta of 1166 shows no less than five under-tenants coming from the immediate neighbourhood of Manneville, four of whom held land of its lord: see OSEVILLE, GWERES, SAINT-OUEN, CRIKETOT, MARTEL.

Concerning this proposal, Loyd was particularly certain, writing (p.vii):

What I send you is therefore provisional, but I confess that I shall be surprised if the errors come to as much as 10%. I may say, by the way, that in the case of what is perhaps the most interesting identification, that of Mandeville earl of Essex, the proof is in my opinion complete and amounts practically to demonstration.

Note that this is a different place of origins that the similarly-named family of Earl's Stoke, Wiltshire, and of Devon.

Marriages and children

Keats-Rohan has an entry for him called "Goisfrid De Magnavilla", where she notes:^[3]

• He was married twice, once to Athelais (or Adelais or Adelisa?) and then to Lescelina.
• He had several known children.

• William was his eldest son and "succeeded him, probably shortly before 1100"
• Walter was already an adult and tenant in 1086
• Beatrice married Geoffrey the illegitimate son of Eustace count of Boulogne

Death

Sanders says he died about 1100.^[4]

Sources

1. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companions_of_William_the_Conqueror
2. ↑ See map on his PASE project page http://domesday.pase.ac.uk/Domesday?op=5&personkey=39099
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} Keats-Rohan, K.S.B. (1999) Domesday People, pp.226-7.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} Sanders, I.J. Early English Baronies, p.71
5. ↑ Cokayne, Gibbs, et al. Complete Peerage, 2nd ed. Vol.5, p.113ff.
6. ↑ Loyd, Origins of Some Anglo-Norman Families, p.57

Also see

• The Magna Charta Barons and Their American Descendants, by Charles H. Browning, publ. 1898 in Philadelphia, PA
• Davis, Henry. Regesta Regum Anglo Normannorum, 1066–1154 (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1913-1969) Vol. 1, Page 54: #202. 1076-84. "Godfrey, son of Count Eustace, gave on behalf of his wife, Beatrice, with consent of Geoffrey de Mandeville;..."