Geoffrey de Geneville, 1st Baron Geneville

Geoffrey de Geneville, 1st Baron Geneville , also Gottfried von Joinville (* between 1225 and 1233; † October 21, 1314 in Trim ), was an Anglo-French nobleman. He served the English kings as a military and official, including as Justiciar of Ireland .

origin

Geoffrey de Geneville came from the French Champagne and was a member of the aristocratic Joinville family . He was a younger son of the French nobleman Simon von Joinville and his wife Béatrice, a daughter of Count Stephan III. from Auxanne . Geneville's eldest brother Jean de Joinville later wrote a biography of the French King Louis IX. His half-sister Agnes von Faucigny married Peter von Savoyen , an uncle of the English queen Eleanor of Provence . Geneville's father died in 1233, after which his mother took Vaucouleurs as a widow's residence. Geneville later referred to himself as Lord of Vaucouleurs.

Rise in England and role during the War of the Barons

Geneville came to England in 1251 in the wake of his uncle Peter of Savoy. By this time the Savoyards , the Queen's relatives, had great influence in the royal court, and Geneville became a close friend of the heir to the throne, Lord Edward . Thanks to the influence of Peter of Savoy, before 1252 he was able to marry Matilda de Briouze , the widow of Pierre de Genevre († 1249), who was another Savoyard as the son of Count Humbert of Geneva . Geneville's wife was a granddaughter and partial heir of Walter de Lacy, Lord of Meath († 1241). Through marriage he acquired properties in the Welsh Marches , which included Ludlow and the barony of Ewyas Lacy . Most of all, he bought properties in Ireland, where his wife inherited half of Meath . The center of his Irish possessions was the royal Trim Castle , to whose steward King Henry III. appointed. In Ireland, Geneville strove to extend his rule and the king eventually confirmed the privileges of the Trim rule that King Henry II had given his wife's ancestors in the 12th century. In 1264 Geneville was a member of the first Irish parliament . When, during the Second War, the baron the heir to the throne, Lord Eduard, was able to escape his guards in 1265, he first sought refuge in Geneville's Ludlow Castle. Then he moved on to the Welsh Marches. Geneville then set up a force in Ireland against the supporters of the government of the barons there. Then he managed to get Richard de la Rochelle , Edward's imprisoned representative in Ireland, free. Finally, he suggested that all parties get back their Irish possessions that they had at the beginning of the Barons' War. With this Geneville had won the support of numerous Irish barons for Edward extremely skillfully and non-violently. From Ireland a sizeable force crossed over to the Welsh Marches, which joined Lord Eduard and fought for him in the Battle of Evesham , the decisive victory of the royal party in the War of the Barons. After the end of the War of the Barons, he was involved in the negotiations in Wales in 1267 that led to the Treaty of Montgomery .

Trim Castle expanded by Geneville

Participated in the crusade and served as Justiciar of Ireland

Together with his brother William, Geneville took part in Prince Edward's crusade in 1270 . While the heir to the throne first traveled to Gascony on the return journey from Palestine , Geneville returned to England. Lord Edward had meanwhile succeeded his late father as king. While still in Gascony, he appointed Geneville as Justiciar of Ireland in 1273 . Similar to the Quo Warranto procedure in England , the king wanted to have the rights and privileges of the barons checked in Ireland. Although Geneville had extensive powers in his office and received substantial financial support from the king, his attempts to reclaim rights wrongly acquired by the barons were largely unsuccessful. In addition, he could not control the rebellion of the Irish people in the Wicklow Mountains . As early as 1274 he was defeated by the rebels, and in 1276, after relieving a castle in Leix , he suffered another defeat together with Thomas de Clare and Maurice FitzGerald, 3rd Lord of Offaly near Glenmalure . He was then replaced as Justiciar by Robert d'Ufford .

Expansion of his Irish possessions

Back in England, he took part in the two campaigns of Edward I for the conquest of Wales from 1276 to 1277 and from 1282 to 1283 . However, his main interest was in his Irish possessions. He had Trim Castle expanded while in 1283 he gave his English possessions to his eldest son Peter. However, in the 1290s Geneville had multiple quarrels with the royal government in Dublin. Due to a controversial detention by Geneville, the government took over the administration of Trim in 1293, and it was not until 1295 that Geneville was regained administration from the king for his services in Wales. In 1302 the administration of Trim was again taken over by royal officials, but the king did not, as usual, support his officials, but confirmed Geneville's privileges. After a long legal battle, Geneville got Trim back while, for example, the rights of Theobald de Verdon , heir to the other half of Meath, were restricted.

Further service as diplomat and military

Despite his involvement in Ireland, Geneville continued to serve the king as a diplomat and negotiator. In 1280 he traveled to the French court in Paris as the king's representative. He wintered in Vaucouleurs and returned to England in 1282. In 1290 and 1300 he traveled as an envoy to the papal curia , and in 1298 and 1299 he was part of the English delegation in negotiations to end the Franco-English War . At the beginning of the war he had transferred his French possessions to his younger son Gautier in 1294, which were thus separated from the English and Irish possessions. When there was a serious domestic political crisis in England during the war in 1297, Geneville played an important role. Faced with the king's renewed demands for new taxes and soldiers, a group of magnates rebelled against the king. Their leaders were Roger Bigod, 5th Earl of Norfolk and Humphrey de Bohun, 3rd Earl of Hereford , who refused to perform their duties as marshal and constable and to undertake the drafting of the troops called up to London. The king then dismissed them from their offices and gave Thomas de Berkeley the office of constable and Geneville the office of marshal. Geneville had already supported Bigod as marshal during the campaign of 1282 to Wales and now carried out the drafting together with Berkeley. After the crisis was resolved, the king returned the offices to Bigod and Bohun. Subsequently, Geneville took part in the king's campaign to Flanders . The grateful king summoned Geneville several times by personal summons to the parliamentary assemblies between February 1299 and November 1306 , so that he is considered Baron Geneville . As an old man, he retired in 1308 to the Dominican settlement of Trim, which he founded in 1263 , where he was also buried after his death.

Family and offspring

Geneville had seven children with his wife Matilda:

1. Geoffroy de Joinville (died young)
2. Pierre de Joinville (Piers de Geneville) († around 1292), Lord of Ludlow and Walterstone; ⚭ Jeanne de Lusignan († 1323), a daughter of Hugo XII. from Lusignan
   1. Joan de Geneville (February 2, 1286, † October 19, 1356), heiress to Ludlow, Walterstone, Meath and Trim; ⚭ Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March
   2. Maud de Geneville, nun in Aconbury Abbey
   3. Beatrice de Geneville, nun in Aconbury Abbey
3. Gautier de Joinville († 1304, killed in the Franco-Flemish War), Lord of Vaucouleurs
   1. Jean de Joinville († after 1334), Lord of Vaucouleurs Vaucouleurs exchanged for Méry-sur-Seine , a
      1. Anseau de Joinville, lord of Méry-sur-Seine
         1. ? Simonette de Méry († after 1402), with Charles de Poitiers († 1419), Lord of Saint-Vallier
      2. Amédée de Joinville, Lord of Méry-sur-Seine
         1. Marguerite de Joinville, mistress of Méry-sur-Seine († after July 1416), ⚭ Hugues VI. d'Amboise († 1406), lord of Chaumont
         2. ? Laure de Joinville, mistress of Méry-sur-Seine, with N. d'Arcelles
   2. Érard de Joinville, lord of Doulevant, fought in 1346 at Crécy
      1. Marguerite de Joinville, ⚭ Hugues d'Amboise, lord of La Maisonfort
4. Simon de Joinville († after 1329), ⚭ Jeanne Fitzlyon
   1. Nicolas de Joinville († 1324), buried in Trim Abbey
5. Nicolas de Joinville / Niccolò de Jamvilla († after 1336), Lord of Morancourt and Miglionico , Regent of Naples
6. Guillaume de Joinville († probably 1322), Lord of Beauregard
7. Jeanne de Joinville, ⚭ Count Johann I von Salm

Geneville survived his wife, who died on April 11, 1304, and his two sons Geoffrey and Piers. The estates in England and Ireland inherited Pierre's eldest daughter Joan , who married Roger Mortimer of Wigmore . The line founded by Geoffrey's second son Gautier in Vaucouleurs remained there for two generations under the old family name Joinville. Vaucouleurs was placed under the French suzerainty in 1299. In 1334 the family gave up the castle, which the head of the family Anseau ceded to the French crown. The Joinvilles of Vaucouleurs received castles in Champagne to compensate. The younger son Nicolas moved to the court of the Anjou in the Kingdom of Naples , where he temporarily ruled King Charles II .

literature

• H.-F. Delaborde: Un Frère de Joinville au Service de l'Angleterre (Bibliotheque Nationale De l'Ecole des Chartes 54; 1893)
• Beth Hartland: Vaucouleurs, Ludlow and Trim: The Role of Ireland in the Career of Geoffrey de Geneville (c. 1226-1314) , in: Irish Historical Studies (IHS) 33 (2001), pp. 457-477
• Seán Duffy, Ailbhe MacShamhtáin, James Moynes: Medieval Ireland: An Encyclopedia (2005)

Web links

• Michael Prestwich: Geneville, Geoffrey de, first Lord Geneville (1225x33-1314). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
• Geoffroy de Joinville at fmg.ac

Individual evidence

1. ^ Robin Frame: Ireland and the barons' wars . In: PR Coss, SD Lloyd: Thirteenth century England I: proceedings of the Newcastle upon Tyne conference, Newcastle upon Tyne 1985 , Boydell, Woodbridge 1986, ISBN 0-85115-452-2 , p. 162
2. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 52
3. ↑ Simon D. Lloyd: English society and the crusade, 1216-1307 . Clarendon, Oxford 1988, ISBN 0-19-822949-6 , p. 125
4. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 263
5. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 539
6. ↑ R. Chiàntera: Intorno alla regalis curia e al reggente Niccolò de Jamvilla in: Archivio storico pugliese , 5 (1952)