Agnes, wife of Geoffrey de Clinton

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Chris Phillips

Agnes, wife of Geoffrey de Clinton

Legg inn av Chris Phillips » 22 okt 2005 13:59:22

I've now had a look at David Crouch's paper, 'Geoffrey de Clinton and Roger,
Earl of Warwick: New men and magnates in the reign of Henry I' [Bull. of the
Inst. of Hist. Res. vol. 55 (1982), pp. 113-124], which discusses more fully
the marriage between Agnes, daughter of Roger, Earl of Warwick, and Geoffrey
de Clinton.

Crouch dates the charter (which is printed by Emma Mason, 'The Beauchamp
Cartulary', Pipe Roll Society new series 43, no 285) as follows:
(1) Because it refers to the counsel of the king and the bishop of
Winchester, he dates it to before that bishop's break with King Stephen in
December 1138. (Mason notes only that the reference to the bishop dates it
to Stephen's reign.)
(2) Similarly, one of the witnesses, Siward fitz Turchill, is known to have
died by 1139.
(3) Another of the mediators is the earl's brother, Robert du Neubourg.
Crouch says that he joined Stephen in Normandy in 1137 (after "sitting on
the fence"), and probably crossed to England with the king in November.

He concludes that the limits on the date are November 1137 x December 1138,
and goes on to suggest a date probably in the summer of 1138, when Stephen
was very active in the Midlands and the Marches.

As for which Geoffrey de Clinton is involved, Crouch says that Geoffrey
senior makes his last appearance in 1133, and thinks he was dead by 1135, as
a writ of Henry I was addressed to Geoffrey's brother William as sheriff of
Warwickshire.

From other circumstantial evidence he suggests that earl Roger then took
military action against Geoffrey's son of the same name, then a minor, at
one point taking all the Clinton lands except Kenilworth. The end of the
conflict was marked by the marriage treaty and the restoration of the
younger Geoffrey's lands.

Crouch doesn't comment on the description of Geoffrey as "camerario" in the
charter. (Incidentally, "camerario consilio regis" as quoted previously here
seems to be a bit of a red herring - apparently the earl is saying he has
acted "consilio regis et episcopi Wynton' et comitis Warr' et Roberti
fratris mei", i.e. by the counsel of the king and the others named. Crouch
suggests that the third named may really be the dowager countess - otherwise
the earl would be in the strange position of naming himself as one of his
own advisors.)

However, he does note that "the text may well have been corrupt, and the
copyist confused things further by his attempts to tidy it up. Some parts of
it, especially the witness list, will always be obscure." It seems a bit odd
that the grantee is named only as "Gaufrido camerario". I wonder whether
it's even possible that camerario is a misreading of an abbreviated form of
Clinton (the Clinton witnesses appear as "Clint'").

One other thing I checked was the register of Stoneleigh Priory - as Peter
Sutton pointed out in the previous discussion, Dugdale in his Antiquities of
Warwickshire referred to the younger Geoffrey having been chamberlain, and
cited Register de Stonley f. 9 b. The same reference is given in Dugdale's
account of Stoneleigh in the Monasticon [vol. 5, p. 443], but the statement
is only that "Geffrey de Clinton [gave] three yard land at Werlavestone, and
one hide in Radway". Unless the original register has since been
rediscovered, there are only the extracts printed in the Monasticon (where I
can't see any further reference to Clintons), and some other notes by
Dugdale "in the Ashmolean Museum".

Chris Phillips

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