Geoffrey De Mandeville: A Study Of The Anarchy

by John Horace Round

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476 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1892

About the author

J.H. Round (1854–1928) was a prolific historian, scholar and genealogist of the English medieval period. He translated the portion of the Domesday Book (1086) covering Essex into contemporary English. As an expert in the history of the British peerage, he was appointed honorary historical adviser to the Crown.

Reviews

[Michael Smith]

Round, one of the more astute (and contentious) genealogical scholars for two decades on either side of the beginning of the 20th century, undertook this study of the period of aristocratic civil war following the death of Henry I in the light of the large number of charters granted or attested by Geoffrey de Mandeville, 1st Earl of Essex. Until his sudden death at the hands of an enemy bowman in 1144, Geoffrey was one of the major players during the Anarchy; to many historians, he typifies the period. Round, in fact, calls him "the most perfect and typical presentment of the feudal and anarchic spirit." Actually, his principal goal seems to have been to recover the lands seized from his father by Henry I, which he accomplished by playing each side in the struggle against the other.

Of special interest, though, is Round’s habit of adding appendices to his books on whatever topics interested him, however tenuous their connection to the subject at hand. This volume includes twenty-eight brief essays on such notables as Gervase de Cornhill, Miles of Gloucester, William of Arques, Roger de Ramis, and the connection between the Mandevilles and the De Veres. There is also an extended essay on "The Creation of the Earldom of Gloucester."

Round’s scholarship is always finely honed, though certain of his interpretations and conclusions are now out of fashion. And be warned that he follows the Victorian gentleman’s assumption that any educated person can handle Latin texts, so he never bothers to translate his frequent excerpts from medieval charters and historians.