Alexander Giffard

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The coat of arms of the Giffards of Brimpsfield.

Alexander Giffard († after 1250) was an English crusader in the 13th century.

He came from the Brimpsfield ( Gloucestershire ) branch of the old Norman Giffard family , who were the Earls of Buckingham in the 12th century . His father was Hugh Giffard , landowner of Boyton, Wiltshire and in 1234 incumbent constable of the Tower of London . His brothers were Walter , Bishop of Bath and Archbishop of York, and Godfrey , Bishop of Worcester, who later officiated successively as Lord Chancellors of England . His sister Mabilia was the abbess of Shaftesbury Abbey .

The Boyton estate was held by the family as a fief of the Countess of Salisbury . The following of her son, William Longespée , joined Alexander Giffard for the crusade of the French King Louis IX. (the saint) to Egypt ( Sixth Crusade ). This English contingent of 200 men reached the crusader army in Damiette in October 1249 . The English fought on February 8, 1250 in the fateful attack by Count Robert von Artois on the city of al-Mansura , in which the vanguard of the crusaders was almost completely destroyed. According to a letter from an anonymous Templar transcribed by Matthew Paris , Alexander Giffard was the only English knight who survived this attack with five serious wounds. However, the Templar wrote that he did not know whether Giffard was at Fariskur on April 6, 1250 with King Ludwig IX. was captured or killed in combat.

But it is also possible that Alexander Giffard was brought down the Nile to safety with the other wounded fighters and was therefore not involved in the events of Fariskur. In any case, he probably died shortly after 1250. His grave is in Boyton Church; the lying figure on it bears three lions on the shield, the coat of arms of the Giffards of Brimpsfield.

literature

  • William Lisle Bowles, John Gough Nichols: Annals and antiquities of Lacock abbey. In the county of Wilts. John Bowyer Nichols and Son, London 1835, pp. 263-264.
  • Christopher Tyerman: England and the Crusades, 1095-1588. University of Chicago Press, London 1996, ISBN 0-226-82013-0 , pp. 109-110.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Matthäus Paris, Chronica Majora Liber Additamentorum , ed. by Henry R. Luard in: Rolls Series (RS) 57.6 (1882), p. 196
personal data
SURNAME Alexander Giffard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English crusader
DATE OF BIRTH 13th Century
DATE OF DEATH after 1250
Place of death al-Mansura