Gottfried II of Lusignan

Gottfried (II.) Von Lusignan (French Geoffroy de Lusignan , also Geoffroy à la Grand Dent ; * around 1200, † between 1242 and 1248) was lord of Vouvant and Mervent . He was the son of Gottfried (I.) von Lusignan († 1216) and his first wife Eustachia, the mistress of Montcontour . After the death of his parents, he inherited their dominions.

Life

Gottfried was married to Clémence, the heir to the Vice Count Hugo III. from Châtellerault. The marriage remained childless, but he was able to officiate as Vice-Count of Châtellerault in her name . When King Louis VIII of France invaded the Poitou in 1224 , Gottfried swore the feudal oath for Châtellerault. The former lord of Poitou, King Henry III. of England , intended to give the castles Vouvent and Mervent to Gottfried's younger brother Amalrich in 1230, because he had remained loyal to the Plantagenet family in 1242 . Since the English king could not restore his rule in Poitou, Gottfried should have kept the castles. Clémence had died before 1239, so that Gottfried had to hand over the vice-county of Châtellerault to one of her relatives.

In 1232 Gottfried had the Benedictine monastery Maillezais burned down to the ground due to sovereign disputes and several monks beheaded. The abbot only got away with his life because he could escape quickly enough. After this event he was excommunicated, but he was able to achieve in Spoleto that Pope Gregory IX. gave him absolution on July 15, 1233.

In 1242 Gottfried entered together with his cousin Hugo X. von Lusignan , this time in league with Heinrich III. of England, against the French King Louis IX. up the saint . In Poitou he is revered as a fighter against central power and as a defender of its freedom. However, their cause was defeated in the Battle of Taillebourg , whereupon Gottfried and the other rebels had to swear the feudal oath again to the French king. After that he is no longer mentioned. By the year 1248 he was already dead, because in September of that year his niece Valence de Lusignan and her husband paid homage to the King of France for the castles Vouvent, Mervent and Soubise.

Literary appreciation

The story of his family von Lusignan is processed literarily in the novel Melusine , with Couldrette and Jean d'Arras responsible for two French versions and Thuringia von Ringoltingen for a German translation of the novel.

In the novel, the character of Geoffroy goes back to him, there he is the son of Melusine and Raymond. He mainly emerges through battles with monsters and giants, from which he frees the country. When Geoffroy learns that his brother Froymond has retired to a monastery, he believes that the monks have put a spell on him. When he does not succeed in persuading his brother to leave the monastery, he burns the monastery down, and all the monks and his brother are killed.

See also

• House Lusignan

literature

• Sidney Painter: The Houses of Lusignan and Châtellerault 1150-1250 , in: Speculum 30 (1955), pp. 374-384
• Anna Mühlherr: Melusine and Fortunatus. Mysterious and denied meaning . Tübingen: Max Niemeyer 1993 (Fortuna vitrea 10).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Layettes du Trésor des Chartes Vol. II, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), no.1650, p. 31
2. ^ Patent Rolls of the Reign of Henry III , p. 409
3. ↑ In October 1239, the mother of Clémence von Châtellerault made a donation to the Abbey of L'Absie in memory of her daughter. See Cartulaires et chartes de l'abbaye de l'Absie , ed. by Bélisaire Ledain in: Archives historiques du Poitou 25 (1895), p. 162
4. ↑ The feudal oath dated June 6, 1242. Guillaume de Nangis , Gesta Sancti Ludovici , ed. by M. Daunou in: Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France 20 (1840), p. 341. Layettes du Trésor des Chartes Vol. II, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1866), no.2976, p. 473.
5. ↑ Layettes du Trésor des Chartes Vol. III, ed. by Alexandre Teulet (1875), no.3715, p. 47