Geoffrey de Mandeville (11th century)

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 of London.^[1][2] Mandeville was a Norman, from one of several places that were known as Magna Villa in the Duchy of Normandy. These included the modern communes of Manneville-la-Goupil and Mannevillette.^[3] Some records indicate that Geoffrey de Mandeville was from Thil-Manneville, in Seine-Maritime, Haute-Normandy (upper Normandy).^[1][4][5]

Life

An important Domesday tenant-in-chief, de Mandeville was one of the ten richest magnates of the reign of William the Conqueror. William granted him large estates, primarily in Essex, but in ten other shires as well.^[6] He served as the first sheriff of London and Middlesex,^[7] and perhaps also in Essex, and in Hertfordshire. He was the progenitor of the de Mandeville Earls of Essex.^[8] About 1085 he and Lescelina, his second wife, founded Hurley Priory by the River Thames in Berkshire, as a cell of Westminster Abbey.^[9][10]

Family

He married firstly, Athelaise (Adeliza) (d. bef. 1085),^[9] by whom he had:

• William de Mandeville (d. bef. 1130), married Margaret dau. of Eudo, dapifer, who m. 2ndly Otuer fitz Count.^[11]
• Beatrice de Mandeville, m. Godfrey fitz Eustace, natural son of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne.^[12] Geoffrey was Lord of Carshalton, Surrey^[13]
• Walter, who was also one of his tenants in 1086.^[1]

He married secondly Lescelina, by whom he had no children.^[1]