Count of the Perche (1191-1202), who twice took the cross, but who died while preparing to go on crusade.
Geoffrey was born before 1160, the eldest son of Rotrou III, count of the Perche in central France, and Matilda, daughter of Thibaud IV, count of Blois (1107-1152). Both his grandfather, Rotrou II of the Perche, and his greatgrandfather, Stephen of Blois, had taken part in the First Crusade (1096-1099).
In 1189 Geoffrey married Matilda, daughter of Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria, and niece of Richard I the Lionheart, king of England. Geoffrey and his father joined the Third Crusade (1189-1192), although Rotrou III seems to have joined the forces of King Philip II of France, while Geoffrey joined Richard. He was with Richard in Messina at Christmas 1190 and is mentioned in Richard’s best-known song, Ja nus honspris. In May 1191 Geoffrey witnessed the marriage settlement of his cousin, Berengaria of Navarre, and King Richard at Limassol in Cyprus. Despite the death of his father in July 1191, Geoffrey remained in the Holy Land until 1192. He fought in an engagement outside Jerusalem in June 1192 in company with the bishop of Salisbury, Hubert Walter. Geoffrey returned to the Perche in 1192/1193, burdened by debt, and was given a subvention by the family foundation of Saint-Denis of Nogent-le-Rotrou.
Geoffrey was an equally enthusiastic prospective participant in the Fourth Crusade (1202-1204). He sought and received leave from King John of England to take mortgages on his lands in England and Normandy and borrowed from his cousin, William Marshal, as well as from a wealthy townsman of Mortagne, Lawrence Flaaut. He was not to return to the Holy Land, however, for during Lent 1202 he was taken seriously ill, and by Easter he was dead. On his deathbed he entrusted his brother Stephen with command of his troops and gave him access to extensive financial resources in the Perche. Stephen’s benefactions to local religious houses in the months after his brother’s death and before his own departure give some idea of the level of resource that Geoffrey had proposed to devote to the crusade.
-Kathleen Thompson
Bibliography
Thompson, Kathleen, “Family Tradition and the Crusading Impulse: The Rotrou Counts of the Perche,” Medieval Prosopography 19 (1998), 1-33.
-, Power and Border Lordship in Medieval France: The
County of the Perche, 1000-1217 (Woodbridge, UK:
Boydell, 2002).
World History
