John Giffard, 1st Baron Giffard

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Carreg Cennen Castle expanded by John Giffard

John Giffard, 1st Baron Giffard (born January 19, 1232 - May 29, 1299 in Boyton , Wiltshire ) was an English nobleman and military man. During the aristocratic rebellion against King Henry III. and the Second War of the Barons he had considerable political influence. He then served King Edward I frequently in the military and rose to become a magnate .

Origin and youth

John Giffard came from the Anglo-Norman family Giffard , his ancestor Osbern Giffard had been in 1086 as the brother of Walter Giffard, 1st Earl of Buckingham lord of extensive estates in south-west England, Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire . John Giffard was the eldest son of Elias Giffard and his second wife Alice de Maltravers, a daughter of John Maltravers . His father owned Brimpsfield Castle as a fiefdom of the Earls of Gloucester with extensive holdings in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire . After the death of his father in 1248, Queen Eleanor of Provence took over his guardianship including the administration of his inheritance until he came of age in 1253. Giffard himself was probably brought up at the court of Simon de Montfort . Already at the age of 14 Giffard took part in the campaign of King Heinrich III. to North Wales. In 1256 he was part of the retinue of John de Mucegros in Ireland. Upon his return he was to be knighted. During the Anglo-Welsh War from 1256 Giffard fought in South Wales in 1257 and 1258 against the advance of the Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd . He then belonged to the household of the heir to the throne Edward and took part from 1260 to 1261 in the Welsh Marches in further battles against the Welsh princes. In 1262, under pressure from the Savoyard relatives of the heir to the throne, he and other young nobles had to leave his household. They were forbidden to take part in tournaments and openly carry weapons.

Supporter of the aristocratic opposition of Simon de Montfort

Like many other of these young nobles, Giffard then joined Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Montfort, the leader of the aristocratic opposition to the king, whose goals included limiting the influence of foreigners like the Savoyards at the royal court. Giffard quickly became one of the leaders of the rebel nobles. In 1263 he plundered the possessions of the loyal Roger Mortimer , which led to a lifelong rivalry between the two. On June 11, 1263 he belonged with Humphrey V. de Bohun , Roger de Clifford and Gilbert de Clare to the nobles who drove Peter D'Aigueblanche , the Savoy-born Bishop of Hereford , out of Hereford Cathedral and captured. For this crime he was excommunicated on February 20, 1264 by Boniface of Savoy , Archbishop of Canterbury . In June or July 1263, he and Roger de Clifford stormed the royal Gloucester Castle after a heavy siege . After the king gave in to the demands of the rebels on July 21, 1263 and Montfort took over the government, he gave Giffard the management of the royal Forest of Dean and St Briavels Castle . In December 1263 he became responsible for securing the southern Welsh Marches including Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire . But already in the same month he made contact with his former employer, Lord Eduard, which was possibly due to Montfort's negotiations with Prince Llywelyn. While many of his former companions returned to the service of the heir to the throne, Giffard turned down his offer after Christmas 1263 and remained in the service of Montfort.

Role during the Second War of the Barons

At the beginning of the open fighting of the Second War of the Barons, he attacked goods from supporters of the heir to the throne in the southern Welsh Marches in early 1264 and supported Montfort in the conquest of the city of Gloucester when, disguised as a Welsh trader, he was able to occupy one of the city gates and open it to the troops of Montfort . However, the re-conquest of Gloucester Castle failed, and when Lord Eduard came for relief in February 1264 , Montfort and Giffard had to withdraw from the city. In April 1264, Giffard captured Warwick Castle and captured the Earl of Warwick . He then took part in the wake of Montfort in the Battle of Lewes , in which he was briefly imprisoned by the king's followers. However, he was released again and could in turn capture William de la Zouche . Immediately after the battle, Giffard moved to the service of Gilbert de Clare, 3rd Earl of Gloucester , the most powerful nobleman of the southern Welsh Marches. This led to tension with Montfort, also because of the sharing of the ransom that Zouche had to pay. Giffard supported Thomas de Clare , a brother of Gilbert, when it came to skirmishes with the sons of Montfort. A tournament in Dunstable , in which the dispute was to be resolved in a knightly manner in February 1265, was banned. Giffard and Clare then withdrew to the southern Welsh Marches, where they gathered a force in the Forest of Dean. Together with Clare, Giffard joined Lord Eduard, who had escaped from captivity in Montfort at the end of May. Giffard occupied the Severn Valley and in June 1265 led the forces that stormed the city walls in the conquest of Gloucester. In early August 1265 he took part in the Battle of Evesham , in which Montfort suffered a crushing defeat. In the battle, Giffard was able to capture several supporters of Montfort, who had to pay him high ransom for their release. In addition, he received extensive lands that were taken from the defeated rebels. He himself was for his temporary support of Montfort by King Heinrich III. pardoned and remained administrator of the Forest of Dean until 1270. Clare thanked him with a lifetime transfer from Burford in Oxfordshire and Badgeworth in Gloucestershire. The cash gained through the ransom allowed Giffard to lend money himself. He himself was rarely at the royal court in the next few years, so that he was of political importance. The reason for this is unclear, but it is possible that he simply retired to his lands and pursued his well-known passion for hunting.

Promotion to Marcher Lord in Wales

In October 1271, Giffard caused a scandal when he allegedly kidnapped the widowed Maud Longespée , daughter and heiress of Sir Walter de Clifford of Glasbury, against her will from her estate in Canford , Wiltshire, and married. Obviously he had already negotiated a marriage with the rich widow, but the negotiations seemingly dragged on, so that Giffard lost patience. Henry III. sentenced him to pay a heavy fine, but was then persuaded to approve the marriage. This brought Giffard into possession of the Clifford inheritance, which included Bronllys and Glasbury Castle in Brecknockshire and estates in Shropshire . Because of these lords in South Wales, Giffard was now one of the Marcher Lords himself .

Participation in the conquest of Wales

On April 24, 1274, Giffard concluded an armistice with Lord Llywelyn ap Gruffydd as agent of Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford in Brecknockshire. After King Edward I's first campaign against Wales , in which he took an active part, he received the Commotes Perfedd and Hirfryn in South West Wales from the King , which the Welsh Lord Rhys Wyndod had to cede. These lands were also claimed by Rhys Wyndod's relative Rhys ap Maredudd , which is why there was a long-standing legal battle between Rhys ap Maredudd and Giffard. During the second campaign of Edward I against Wales , the king promised him Llandovery Castle , but that was captured on April 14 by Gilbert de Clare. Gilbert de Clare had to hand over the castle to him anyway. On October 14th he became constable of Builth Castle . Towards the end of the year he defended Builth in Mid Wales against the advance of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd and was part of the English armed forces under Roger Lestrange and Edmund Mortimer , which provided Llywelyn's force at Builth. Llywelyn herself was killed on December 11th in the skirmish at Orewin Bridge , which decided the Welsh campaign. The king thanked him with the reign of Iscennen with Carreg Cennen Castle in Cantref Bychan. In 1290 he was given lifelong management of Dinefwr Castle . Nevertheless, he had to hand over the castle to Walter de Pedeston in 1297 .

Further military service and final years

After the conquest of Wales there was a feud between Giffards and Humphrey de Bohun, 3rd Earl of Hereford , over Iscennen , because he had conquered Iscennen during the war and claimed the area for himself. It was not until 1289 that an arbitration decision from King Iscennen finally awarded Giffard. Giffard's dispute with Rhys ap Maredudd over Perfedd and Hirfryn was one of the factors that triggered the rebellion of Rhys against the king in 1287. During the Welsh uprising of 1294 he defended Central Wales together with the Earl of Hereford and after four unsuccessful attempts was finally able to relieve the besieged Builth Castle in November. After that, he was part of the English army that in the war from 1294 French-English the Gascogne should defend. He was supposed to defend the castle of Podensac south of Bordeaux , which he handed over to a French army under Karl von Valois without much resistance . He negotiated free withdrawal for the English garrison, while he left the knights from Gascony, who also belonged to the crew, to the mercy of the conquerors. Understandably, this caused an uproar among the Gacogne nobles. The marshal of the English army, Ralph Gorges , wanted to bring Giffard to justice, which now led to the mutiny of Giffard's soldiers. Then Giffard returned to England. Despite his failure in Gascony, he retained the king's favor and participated in council meetings and parliaments , which is why he is considered Baron Giffard . In 1292 he was a member of the council that had discussed the succession to the throne in Scotland in Berwick . As a member of the Privy Council during the king's campaign in Flanders in 1297, he was probably involved in the formulation of the Confirmatio Cartarum , a confirmation of the Magna Carta . He died on one of his estates in Wiltshire and was buried in Malmesbury Abbey on June 11, 1299 .

personality

Giffard is portrayed by his contemporaries as a brave and skillful warrior, but also as a clever and level-headed man. Even at an advanced age he remained an active soldier and in 1274, at the age of 42, took part in a tournament in Newark with a large entourage . He was also considered an enthusiastic hunter who not only hunted on his own property, but also illegally in royal forests. In 1283 or 1284 he donated Gloucester Hall in Oxford. This branch at Oxford University was intended to enable monks to study at Gloucester Abbey, which was heavily sponsored by Giffard's family .

Marriages and offspring

At the age of four, Giffard was engaged by his parents in Arrow , Warwickshire, to Alberada (also Aubrée ) de Canville , a daughter of Thomas de Canville from Arrow, of the same age . However, he did not marry his fiancée, who eventually entered a convent as a nun. He had several daughters with his first wife Maud de Clifford, whom he married in 1271, including:

  1. Katherine ∞ Nicholas Audley, 1st Baron Audley of Heleigh
  2. Eleanore ∞ Fulk Lestrange, 1st Baron Strange of Blackmere
  3. Maud ∞ William de Geneville

After the death of his first wife in 1282, he married Alicia Maltravers for the second time, the marriage remained childless. In his third marriage in 1286 he married Margaret de Neville († 1338), the widow of John de Neville († 1282). With her he had a son, John . After his death, his daughters inherited the Clifford family's estates from their mother, who divided them among themselves. His son became the heir of Brimpsfield and Giffard's other estates, but remained under guardianship until 1308.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ David Verey: Gloucestershire. Volume 1: The Cotswolds. (= The Buildings of England. Volume 40). Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1970, ISBN 0-14-071040-X , p. 134.
  2. ^ Rees R. Davies: The Age of Conquest. Wales 1063-1415 . Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford 1991, ISBN 0-19-820198-2 , p. 363.
  3. ^ JN Langton: The Giffards of Brimpsfield . In: Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 1944 (65), pp. 105–128 ( online, pdf )
  4. ↑ Michael Prestwich: Edward I . Berkeley, University of California Press, 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 49
  5. ^ Michael Altschul: A baronial family in medieval England. The Clares . The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore 1965, p. 140
  6. ^ Rees R. Davies: The Age of Conquest. Wales 1063-1415 . Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford 1991, ISBN 0-19-820198-2 , p. 363
  7. ↑ Scott L. Waugh: Bohun, Humphrey (VI) de, third earl of Hereford and eighth earl of Essex (c.1249-1298). 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
  8. ^ David Walker: Medieval Wales . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1990, ISBN 0-521-31153-5 , p. 155
  9. ↑ Michael Prestwich: Edward I . Berkeley, University of California Press, 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 382
  10. ^ British History Online: Gloucester College. Retrieved June 10, 2014 .
predecessor Office successor
New title created Baron Giffard
1295-1299 		John Giffard
personal data
SURNAME Giffard, John, 1st Baron Giffard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lord Gifford of Bromsfield
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Anglo-Norman nobleman and military
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1232
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 1299
Place of death Boyton , Wiltshire