Geoffrey de Turville

  Noted events in his life were:

• Background Information. ¹³¹⁸
"One of the greatest lords that accompanied Duke William upon his memorable invasion of England in 1066 was his half- brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux. Among the Bishop's followers was a certain Anschitil, who may have been present at (the Battle of) Hastings-possibly one of the young men who the Bayeux tapestry. Anschitil was dead before 1086, when his son Roger is found holding extensive estates of the Bishop in the counties of Buckingham, Kent and Hertford. By far teh greater part of his possessions lay in Buckinghamshire where he held, besides several lesser lordships, Weston, Taplow, Chalfont, and Saunderton; in Kent, where he is called "son of Anschitil." he Held Hastingleigh and Eastling; in Hertford he held the manor of Putenham. These holdings, assessed at upwards of fifty hides, constituted a very large estate for a Doomsday under-tenant."

"On Roger's death, his inheritance passes to Geoffrey de Turville, whose grandsons, William and Richard de Turville, were sued, in 1212, by Herbert de Bolebec, great-grandson and heir of Isabel, the daughter of Roger, son of Anschitil, for seven and a quarter knight's fees in Chalfont. The suit was obviously unsuccessful and it may therefore be fairly presumed that Geoffrey was Roger's son and heir, for it is quite unlikely that the Turvilles could otherwise have resisted so strong a claim.

"There can be no doubt that this Geoffrey is identical with the Geoffrey de Turville whose cruel mutilation by Henry I is recorded by Ordericus Vitalis. After Bishop Odo's forfeiture, many of his lordships passed to Robert de Beaumont, Earl of Leicester and Count of Meulan. His son Waleran, Count of Meulan, whose fortunes Geoffrey would naturally follow, rebelled against the king in 1123, and was utterly defeated at the battle of Rougemontier, where he and some eighty of his men-at-arms were taken prisoners. At Rouen, the following year, the King pronounced judgment on the captives and caused the eyes of Geoffrey de Turville and another knight named Odard du Pin to be put out. . . . It is not known for certain if Geoffrey survived this terrible punishment. It is, however evident that Geoffrey de Turville, or his son of the same name, was, to some extent, in the King's favour in 1130, when he was pardoned £4-8-6 of geld-an amount corresponding very closely to the sum that would have been due on the Doomsday assessment-on his lands in Bucks.

"Geoffrey de Turville was succeeded by his son, another Geoffrey. In 1146, he acknowledged that, with the consent of Gundred, his wife, he had given to the church of St. Mary of Missenden, for the souls of his father, Geoffrey, his brother William, himself, his wife and his sons, all the land of "la Lega" that Ralf de Haltuna held."

~"The Origins of the Putenhams," New England Historical & Genealogical Register, Vol. 95. p. 122-124