Geoffrey de Mandeville (died c. 1100), also known as de Magnaville (from the Latin ''de Magna Villa'' "of the great town"), was a

Constable of the Tower The Constable of the Tower is the most senior appointment at the Tower of London. In the Middle Ages a constable was the person in charge of a castle when the owner—the king or a nobleman—was not in residence. The Constable of the Tower had a ...

of London.K.S.B. Keats-Rohan, ''Domesday People,'' I Domesday Book, (Boydell Press, 1999) pp. 226–7 Mandeville was a

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

, from one of several places that were known as Magna Villa in the

Duchy of Normandy The Duchy of Normandy grew out of the 911 Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte between King Charles III of West Francia and the Viking leader Rollo. The duchy was named for its inhabitants, the Normans. From 1066 until 1204, as a result of the Norman c ...

. These included the modern communes of

Manneville-la-Goupil Manneville-la-Goupil is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region in northern France. Geography A farming village in the Pays de Caux situated some northeast of Le Havre, at the junction of the D10 and D52 roads. Heral ...

and

Mannevillette Mannevillette () is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region in northern France. Geography A farming village in the Pays de Caux situated some north of Le Havre, at the junction of the D111 and D79 roads. Heraldry Po ...

. Some records indicate that Geoffrey de Mandeville was from Thil-Manneville, in

Seine-Maritime Seine-Maritime () is a department of France in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the northern coast of France, at the mouth of the Seine, and includes the cities of Rouen and Le Havre. Until 1955 it was named Seine-Inféri ...

, Haute-Normandy (upper Normandy).

Life

An important Domesday

tenant-in-chief In medieval and early modern Europe, the term ''tenant-in-chief'' (or ''vassal-in-chief'') denoted a person who held his lands under various forms of feudal land tenure directly from the king or territorial prince to whom he did homage, as opp ...

, de Mandeville was one of the ten richest magnates of the reign of

William the Conqueror William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first House of Normandy, Norman List of English monarchs#House of Norman ...

. William granted him large estates, primarily in

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

, but in ten other shires as well. He served as the first sheriff of

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...

, and perhaps also in Essex, and in

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

. He was the progenitor of the de Mandeville

Earls of Essex Earl of Essex is a title in the Peerage of England which was first created in the 12th century by King Stephen of England. The title has been recreated eight times from its original inception, beginning with a new first Earl upon each new cre ...

. About 1085 he and Lescelina, his second wife, founded Hurley Priory as a cell of

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an historic, mainly Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United ...

.K.S.B. Keats-Rohan, ''Domesday People,'' I Domesday Book, (Boydell Press, 1999) p. 227

Family

He married firstly, Athelaise (Adeliza) (d. bef. 1085), by whom he had: *

William de Mandeville William de Mandeville (died before 1130) was an Anglo-Norman baron and Constable of the Tower of London. Life William de Mandeville inherited the estates of his father Geoffrey de Mandeville, the Domesday tenant-in-chief, around 1100. He was C ...

(d. bef. 1130), married Margaret dau. of Eudo, dapifer, who m. 2ndly Otuer fitz Count. * Beatrice de Mandeville, m. Godfrey de Bouillon, natural son of

Eustace II, Count of Boulogne Eustace II, (), also known as Eustace aux Grenons ("Eustace with long moustaches"),Heather J. Tanner, 'Eustace (II), count of Boulogne (d. c.1087)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. was Count of Boulogne fro ...

. Geoffrey was Lord of Carshalton, SurreyAnn Williams, G.H. Martin, ''Domesday Book; A Complete Translation,'' (Penguin Books, 1992) p. 85 * Walter, who was also one of his tenants in 1086. He married secondly Lescelina, by whom he had no children.

References

Additional references

* ''Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700'' by Frederick Lewis Weis, Line 158A-23. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mandeville, Geoffrey de 1100 deaths 11th-century births Year of birth unknown Year of death uncertain Anglo-Normans People from Essex High Sheriffs of Middlesex G