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Gervase of Tilbury
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gervase of Tilbury (c.1150 - c. 1228) was a thirteenth-century canon lawyer, statesman and writer, apparently born in either East Tilbury or West Tilbury, in Essex, England. He was of aristocratic stock, claiming kinship with Patrick, Earl of Salisbury, and mentioning of his kith who were descended from a fey serpent-woman recognizable as the melusine,[1] which would suggest he was allied with the House of Lusignan in Poitou. During his youth he entered the service of Henry of Anjou, later king of England, for whom he wrote a Liber facetiarum. He also served Henry's uncle William of Champagne, archbishop of Reims.
Probably after the king's death in 1128/3, he travelled widely: he studied canon law at Bologna, and until 1189 attended the Norman court in Sicily of William II, who had married Henry's daughter Joan (1177). After the king's death (1189) Gervase settled in Arles and was appointed Marshal of the Kingdom of Arles in 1198 by Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor and grandson of king Henry. Ex officio he accompanied Otto to Rome in 1209 on the occasion of his coronation.
The following year Gervase was enmeshed in the papacy's struggle with Gervase's patron Otto, who was excommunicated by Pope Innocent III. Gervase employed the next years, from 1210 to 1214, writing the Otia imperialia ("Recreation for an Emperor") for his patron. In 1214, after the resounding defeat of Otto and his English ally John at the battle of Bouvines, Gervase was forced to retire to the duchy of Braunschweig.
Gervase's Otia imperialia has also been titled Liber de mirabilibus mundi, Solatia imperatoris, and Descriptio totius orbis.[2] It is an encyclopedic miscellany of wonders, divided into three parts (decisiones) concerning history, geography, and physics. During the following three centuries it was much read,[3] and it was twice translated into French in the fourteenth century. The philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, who edited parts of it,[4] called it a "bagful of foolish old woman's tales"; its modern Oxford University Press editors less dismissively report "a wealth of accounts of folklore and popular belief", but Catholic apologists respect it most of all for the support it offers of Innocent's papal claims in his conflicts between Church and Empire (CE).
- ^ C. C. Oman, "The English Folklore of Gervase of Tilbury" Folklore 55.1 (March 1944, pp. 2-15) p. 2.
- ^ "Imperial leisure", "Book of the world's marvels", "The Emperor's Solace" and "Description of the Entire World".
- ^ There are numerous manuscripts of it.
- ^ In his Scriptores rerum Bunsvicensium, vol. I (Hanover, 1710).
- S. E. Banks and J. W. Binns, editors, 2002. Gervaise of Tilbury: Otia Imperialia : Recreation for an Emperor (Oxford University Press, Oxford Medieval Texts) ISBN 0-19-820288-1 The first English translation.
- Catholic Encyclopedia "Gervase of Tilbury"