Geoffrey (Say) de Say (abt. 1180 - 1230)

Born about 1180 in West Greenwich, Kent, England

Ancestors

Husband of Hawise (Clare) de Say — married before 1215 in England

Descendants

Died 19 Aug 1230 at about age 50 in Poitou, France

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Magna Carta Surety Baron Geoffrey II de Say was one of the twenty-five medieval barons who were surety for Magna Carta in 1215. Join: Magna Carta Project Discuss: magna_carta

Caution: Geoffrey has a half-brother named Geoffrey (see below)

Biography

Parentage

Geoffrey de Say was the son of Geoffrey de Say and Alice de Cheyne.^[1][2][3] (See below for a discussion fo Alice de Cheyne.) He was probably born in about 1180.^[1]

Property

From his mother Geoffrey inherited in the old feudal barony of West Greenwich, based in Kent. During his lifetime he also managed to takeover the Kent feudal barony of Patrixbourne, because the two heiresses were married to Normans who took the side of the French king and forfeited their English lands.^[4]

Geoffrey held lands in Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Middlesex, Northamptonshire and Sussex, and also in Normandy.^[1] He inherited the Barony of West Greenwich, Kent from his mother.^[5] He is recorded in 1224 as having 42 knights' fees in Montgomeryshire, Wales.^[1]

Geoffrey's father had granted Sayes Court, Deptford, Kent to the Knights Templar. Geoffrey recovered it in the later 1220s^[1] in exchange for giving the Templars property at Saddlescombe, Sussex^[1][6]

Life

Geoffrey appears in documents from 1197/8 (when he confirmed a grant of his father's) onwards.^[1]

In 1202 Geoffrey was awarded compensation for lands lost to the French king in Anjou.^[1]

In 1215 Geoffrey sided with other barons against King John, and was one of the Surety Barons for the Magna Carta.^[1][7] A few months later most of his lands were confiscated: they were not restored until he returned to allegiance to the English Crown in 1217.^[1]

Geoffrey went on pilgrimage twice: in 1219, to the Holy Land; and in 1221, to Santiago da Compostella.^[1]

Marriage and Children

Geoffrey married Hawise de Clare before 1215.^[1] They had three sons:

• William^[1]
• Geoffrey^[1]
• John^[1]

Death

Geoffrey died in Poitou on 19 August 1230 while campaigning with Henry III.^[1] He was buried at the Hospital of St Mary, Dover, Kent, of which he had been a benefactor.^[1]

Research Notes

Different People with the Name Geoffrey de Say

Great care is needed to distinguish between different people of this period with the name Geoffrey de Say. Besides the Surety Baron of this profile there are:

• Geoffrey de Say, his father
• Geoffrey de Say, his son^[1]
• A half-brother, Geoffrey de Say, who was his father's son by his second wife Alice de Vere^[1]
• Geoffrey de Say, son of his half-brother^[1][8]
• A clerk called Geoffrey de Say^[8]

In the Complete Peerage Cokayne has conflated Geofrey with both his father and his half-brother.^[9] So do Burke's Peerage^[10] and some other secondary sources.

Wife

Douglas Richardson discusses confusions over Geoffrey de Say's marriage history in Magna Carta Ancestry^[1] and his 2007 post in soc.genealogy.medieval.^[8]

Cokayne in his main entry for Geoffrey ascribes two wives to him: Alice, probably heiress of John de Chesney/Cheyne, and Margery de Briwerre.^[9] So does Burke's Peerage.^[10] I J Sanders in his English Baronies states that Margery de Briwerre was a wife of the Geoffrey of this profile.^[11] So does Cawley.^[12]

• Alice de Cheyne (or Chesney) was Geoffrey's mother, not his wife. This is evidenced by contemporary documents. For instance in about 1198 Geoffrey and his father Geoffrey made a gift to the hospital at Drincourt (now called Neufchâtel-en-Bray^[13]) for the soul of Geoffrey's mother Alice de Chesney.^[2] There is a correction to Cokayne on the Notes on Medieval English Genealogy website.^[14] By way of extra evidence that Alice was Geoffrey’s mother, this correction to Cokayne cites a grant confirmed by Geoffrey de Say son of Geoffrey de Say and Alice "de Chemunei" (a variant spelling of Cheyne). Cokayne himself shows Alice as the mother of the Geoffrey of this profile in a Mandeville pedigree.^[15]
• Margery (or Margaret) de Briwerre was probably the second wife of Geoffrey's half-brother of the same name, who would have been her third husband.^[8] Her previous husbands were William de la Ferté and Eudo de Dammartin, and she was alive in 1233.^[11][16] (Sanders and Cawley disagree on which of these previous husbands was the first, and which the second.)

Confirmation that Geoffrey married Hawise de Clare is given by a charter of about 1235 issued by his widow Hawise de Clare and his son William relating to property in Edmonton, Middlesex. There is also a record dated 1215 of Geoffrey having knights' fees held from the Earl of Clare by "free-marriage".^[8]

Magna Carta 800th Anniversary Biography

For the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta in 2015, Professor Nigel Saul wrote a set of biographies of the Surety Barons. He and the Magna Carta 800th Anniversary Committee generously gave permission for them to be reproduced on WikiTree. They can be viewed here.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20} Douglas Richardson. Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 4 vols, ed. Kimball G. Everingham. 2nd edition, Salt Lake City: the author, 2011, Vol. III pp. 495-497, SAY 1
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} William Farrer. Honors and Knights' Fees, Vol. III, Manchester University Press and Longmans, Green & Co, 1925, pp.318-319
3. ↑ I J Sanders. English Baronies. A Study of their Origin and descent 1086-1327, Clarendon Press, Oxford,1960, p. 98
4. ↑ I.J. Sanders, English Baronies, pp.97-98,&135.
5. ↑ I J Sanders. English Baronies. A Study of their Origins and Descent 1086-1327, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1960, pp. 97-98
6. ↑ Edward Hasted. 'Parishes: Deptford,' in The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, Vol. 1 (Canterbury: W Bristow, 1797), pp. 340-371, accessed March 12, 2016, British History Online
7. ↑ Douglas Richardson, Magna Carta Ancestry, Vol. I, p. ix
8. ↑ ^{8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4} Douglas Richardson. 'Complete Peerage Addition: Hawise de Clare, wife of Geoffrey de Say, Magna Carta Baron', post in soc.genealogy.medieval, 10 Nov 2007, viewable on Narkive
9. ↑ ^{9.0 9.1} G E Cokayne. Complete Peerage, revised edition, Vol. XI, St Catherine Press, 1949, pp. 468-470
10. ↑ ^{10.0 10.1} See 'Geoffrey de Say' in thePeerage.com
11. ↑ ^{11.0 11.1} I J Sanders, English Baronies, p. 123
12. ↑ Charles Cawley. Medieval Lands, entry for Geoffrey V de Say
13. ↑ Wikipedia: Neufchâtel-en-Bray
14. ↑ Some corrections and additions to the Complete Peerage: Volume 11: Say, accessed 28 November 2019
15. ↑ G E Cokayne. Complete Peerage, revised edition, Vol. V, St Catherine Press, 1926, Mandeville pedigree before p. 217
16. ↑ Charles Cawley. Medieval Lands, entry for Margaret de Briwere

• Richardson, Douglas. Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 5 vols, ed. Kimball G. Everingham. Salt Lake City: the author, 2013. See also WikiTree's source page for ‘’Royal Ancestry’’. Vol. IV, p. 562
• Richardson, Douglas. Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 4 vols, ed. Kimball G. Everingham. 2nd edition, Salt Lake City: the author, 2011, Vol. III pp. 495-497, SAY 1. See also WikiTree's source page for ‘’Magna Carta Ancestry.’’ Partially viewable in snippets on Google Books.
• Cawley, Charles. "Medieval Lands": A prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families © by Charles Cawley, hosted by Foundation for Medieval Genealogy (FMG). See also WikiTree's source page for MedLands. Entry for
  • Geoffrey V de Say
• Richardson, Douglas. 'Complete Peerage Addition: Hawise de Clare, wife of Geoffrey de Say, Magna Carta Baron', post in soc.genealogy.medieval, 10 Nov 2007, viewable on Narkive, accessed 28 November 2019

Acknowledgements

Magna Carta Project

As a surety baron, Geoffrey de Say's profile is managed by the Magna Carta Project. See Say-76 Descendants for profiles of his descendants that have been improved and categorized by the Magna Carta project and are in a project-approved trail to a Gateway Ancestor. See this index for links to other surety barons and category pages for their descendants. See the project's Base Camp for more information about Magna Carta trails.

This profile was revised for the Magna Carta Project by Michael Cayley, finishing 4 December 2019.