Ancestral Trails 2016 » Geoffrey de BRETAGNE II (1158-1186)

Persoonlijke gegevens Geoffrey de BRETAGNE II 

• Hij is geboren op 23 september 1158 in Beaumont Palace, Oxford, Oxfordshire.
• Titel: Duke of Normandy
• Titel: Count of Anjou/Count of Brittany
• Hij is overleden op 19 augustus 1186 in Paris, Seine, Île-de-France, France, hij was toen 27 jaar oud.
• Hij is begraven in het jaar 1186 in Notre Dame, Paris, Île-de-France, France.
• Een kind van HENRY II OF ENGLAND en ELEANOR d'AQUITAINE

Gezin van Geoffrey de BRETAGNE II

Hij is getrouwd met CONSTANCE de BRETAGNE.

Zij zijn getrouwd juli 1181, hij was toen 22 jaar oud.

Kind(eren):

1. Eleanor de BRETAGNE  1184-1241
2. Matilda de BRETAGNE  1185-1189
3. Arthur de BRETAGNE  1187-1203

• Het echtpaar heeft gemeenschappelijke voorouders.



Notities over Geoffrey de BRETAGNE II

Geoffrey II (23 September 1158 - 19 August 1186) was Duke of Brittany and 3rd Earl of Richmond between 1181 and 1186, through his marriage with the heiress Constance. Geoffrey was the fourth son of King Henry II of England and Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine.

He was a younger maternal half-brother of Marie de Champagne and Alix of France. He was a younger brother of William, Count of Poitiers, Henry the Young King, Matilda, Duchess of Saxony, and Richard, King of England. He was also an older brother of Eleanor, Queen of Castile, Joan, Queen of Sicily and John, Prince of England. He was also the half-brother of his father's illegitimate sons Geoffrey, archbishop of York, William Longespée, 3rd Earl of Salisbury, and Morgan, provost of Beverley Minster. He was named after his grandfather, Geoffrey V of Anjou.

King Henry arranged for Geoffrey to marry Constance, the heiress of Brittany as part of a diplomatic agreement to end his attacks on Constance's father, Conan IV, Duke of Brittany. Geoffrey was invested with the duchy, and he and Constance were married in July 1181.

Geoffrey's father Henry had begun to alter his policy of indirect rule in Brittany and started to exert more direct control. Henry had been at war with Conan IV until they reached a settlement. Local Breton nobles rebelled against Conan, who now sought Henry II's help. In 1164 Henry intervened to seize lands along the border of Brittany and Normandy, and in 1166 invaded Brittany to punish the local barons. Henry then forced Conan to abdicate as duke and to give Brittany to his daughter Constance; Constance was handed over and betrothed to Henry's son Geoffrey This arrangement was quite unusual in terms of medieval law, as Conan might have had sons who could have legitimately inherited the duchy.

These growing tensions between Henry and Louis VII of France finally spilled over into open war in 1167, triggered by a trivial argument over how money destined for the Crusader states of the Levant should be collected. Louis allied himself with the Welsh, Scots and Bretons and the French king attacked Normandy. Henry responded by attacking Chaumont-sur-Epte, where Louis kept his main military arsenal, burning the town to the ground and forcing Louis to abandon his allies and make a private truce. Henry was then free to move against the rebel barons in Brittany, where feelings about his seizure of the duchy were still running high.

Geoffrey was fifteen years old when he joined the first revolt against his father. He later reconciled to Henry in 1174 when he participated in the truce at Gisors. Geoffrey prominently figured in the second revolt of 1183, fighting against Richard, on behalf of Henry the Young King.

Geoffrey was a good friend of Prince Philip of France, and the two statesmen were frequently in alliance against King Henry. Geoffrey spent much time at Philip's court in Paris, and Philip made him his seneschal. There is evidence to suggest that Geoffrey was planning another rebellion with Philip's help during his final period in Paris in the summer of 1186. As a participant in so many rebellions against his father, Geoffrey acquired a reputation for treachery. Gerald of Wales wrote the following of him: "He has more aloes than honey in him; his tongue is smoother than oil; his sweet and persuasive eloquence has enabled him to dissolve the firmest alliances and by his powers of language able to corrupt two kingdoms; of tireless endeavour, a hypocrite in everything, a deceiver and a dissembler."

Geoffrey also was known to attack monasteries and churches in order to raise funds for his campaigns. This lack of reverence for religion earned him the displeasure of the Church, and as a consequence of the majority of chroniclers who wrote about his life.

Geoffrey and Constance had three children, one born after Geoffrey's death:
Eleanor, Fair Maid of Brittany (1184-1241)
Maud/Matilda of Brittany (1185 - before May 1189)
Arthur I, Duke of Brittany (1187-1203)

Geoffrey died on 19 August 1186, at the age of twenty-seven, in Paris. There is also evidence that supports a death date of 21 August 1186. There are two alternative accounts of his death. The more common first version holds that he was trampled to death in a jousting tournament. At his funeral, a grief-stricken Philip was said to have attempted jumping into the coffin. Roger of Hoveden's chronicle is the source of this version; the detail of Philip's hysterical grief is from Gerald of Wales.

In the second version, in the chronicle of the French Royal clerk Rigord, Geoffrey died of sudden acute chest pain, which reportedly struck immediately after his speech to Philip, boasting his intention to lay Normandy to waste. Possibly, this version was an invention of its chronicler; sudden illness being God's judgment of an ungrateful son plotting rebellion against his father, and for his irreligiosity. Alternatively, the tournament story may be an invention of Philip's to prevent Henry II's discovery of a plot; inventing a social reason, a tournament, for Geoffrey's being in Paris, Philip obscured their meeting's true purpose.

Marie of Champagne, with whom Geoffrey had gotten on well, was present at the requiem for her half-brother and established a mass chantey for the repose of his soul.

Geoffrey was buried in the choir of Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral, but his tombstone was destroyed in the 18th century before the French revolution. His body was exhumed in 1797 and measured at five feet, six inches and a half, (1.69 m).

After Geoffrey's death, Henry II arranged for Constance, Geoffrey's widow, to marry Ranulph, the Earl of Chester. Ranulph would become Duke of Brittany, jure uxoris, for a short time before this marriage was annulled.
SOURCE: Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_II,_Duke_of_Brittany


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